My friend is homophobic.............

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it started with talking about California, which led to him talking about his parents not liking liberals(which I knew before), and that’s when he mentioned his parents not liking “gays”. I was like, “so your parents are homophobic?” And then he said “yes and I am too”.

That still falls into the category of "crazy talk"

You have neatly summarised why people overseas see Americans as "hate mongers" that this type of personal hate can come up casually in polite conversation??

I know several people who find gay sex disgusting but respect gays just as any other people.
One guy made a simile: "I find eating shellfish disgusting. I don't wish anything bad to people who eat shellfish, I wouldn't disown my kid for eating shellfish, I just don't want to eat shellfish or to be shown people eating shellfish, eat your shellfish away from me, please."

Now, subtract the "eating shellfish" with "gay sex" and tell me - is this homophobic in your opinion or not?

^That’s pretty much how I view gay male sex. But gays have the same rights to be treated with dignity as heterosexual folks.

From your posts, I can see that your friend has explained to you what he believes. Do you think you can get your friend to explain to you why he believes it? If yes, have the conversation. I doubt you are at risk of having _your_ mind changed, but now you will understand how your friend makes decisions. While talking about it, your friend may get to see if he is using good tools to make decisions.
If you don't think you can have a productive, non-judgmental conversation about why your friend believes this, don't bother.
I'm glad you got to learn something new about your friend, and I'm sorry if you have lost a friend as a result.

IR

Is he Otherwise a good person & friend?

If not, drop him like a bad habit. Sayonara!

However, if he’s otherwise good people and it seems his views on gays have been formed by his homophobic parents & likely homophobic preacher/congregation, then I’d say remain friends with him Because you’ll have the opportunity to be a positive influence on him about this. You may have to tread lightly so as not to be confrontational and cause an argument or him to be upset, but when anything related comes up you can say something neutral or positive or challenge his perspective in a friendly and logical way. Even a simple response like “I have no problem with gay people, they’ve never done me any wrong.” Or “Why would I fear gay people? They’re not scary.” Or “I was raised to respect all people/all of God’s creations/to love my neighbour.” Etc in a way that subtly hints that the Christian mantra commands believers to treat everyone with respect. It may take years of subtly disagreement to nudge him into the right direction as if he’s currently firmly on team homophobe it may take him quite some time to shift his thinking and realize he’s been peddled a load of crap by his parents and church, but if he’s a good person and friend it’ll be worth the patience in order to change his mind.

And if his reaction is to unfriend & excommunicate you from his life at the first sign that you’re not a hateful person and won’t be joining in his homophobia.. well then, he really isn’t as good a person as we’d like to believe and perhaps this friendship has run its course and was meant to end. But I wouldn’t be the one to choose to end it, I’d let his words & actions in response to yours determine that course - then you have no guilt over giving up on a good friend if that’s the way things go.

As a gay man, those are my thoughts of the moment. Hope they’re helpful.

Maybe I’ll reach out to him. I’ll just need to figure out what I’m gonna say in my “there is nothing wrong with the LGBT community” speech to him.

I think your friend “doth protest too much”

Tell me how you think it would be interpreted if you publicly said and were on the record saying "I find gay sex disgusting"

I live in Poland. Here, it would be interpreted literally.

Is your boyfriend 18?

I don't have a problem with that.
Well done!

Oh yeah...well gotta stop looking at the world through "western eyes"

Surely a “speech,” will be off putting to him.

If your objective is to “push him to the edge of a cliff,” and force him to make a decision on whether or not to continue your friendship with you based on this factor, then a speech would do that. He’ll likely react negatively and opt to end your friendship - but he bright side is you’ll know exactly where he stands on being friends with someone with different views. You just have to be prepared to accept his decision, the fallout, and loss of said friendship if that’s the way things go. (And likely will IMO.)

If your objective is to communicate your position w/o “pushing him to the edge of a cliff,” (as is said in sales, in order to force someone to make a decision.) then you’ll have to be much more subtle and just drop a comment vs make a speech. Keep it simple with something like “Gay people don’t bother me,” or whatever, and then if he blows up over a super simple statement that’s on him. But if you give him a lecture he’s sure to blow up and you really should kind of expect him to.

IF he’s otherwise a good friend and person and you want the opportunity to gently change his mind over time you’ll have to be very low key and subtle about it. Be patient. Let him spout his nonsense and just mostly ignore it. Keep your opinions short and sweet and non-confrontational and he May just come around to the idea that lgbt people are Also people and not deserving of bigoted wrath for no good reason other than someone teaching him to be hateful.

Just simply say you are not homophobic and see his reaction. You don't need to give a speech as it will not change his mind and you do not need to justify your position. If he can accept your position, then your friendship can probably be saved, but if he can't accept it, he will probably end it.

Update: After a few days of figuring out what exactly to tell him, I sent a text to my friend last night. I told him the reasons why people of different sexual orientation are who they are, and that I understood that he's had a religious upbringing, but that I was worried about what situations those beliefs might lead to someday. I then told him that it was someone else in the bible, not god, who wrote that extremely unfortunate quote in the bible.

He responded, and he apologized for upsetting me, and he said that he does respect gays and that he's respectful whenever he's around them. He also said that he's glad I taught him what I taught him.

All in all, it worked out perfectly. I feel proud of myself for stopping someone from being a bigot all their life.

Well, that’s good news. Shows he’s not too far gone. Be prepared to hear more about it in the future and to have to carefully refute his statements again - his parents and religious influences aren’t going to go away.