The 1993 movie “This Boy’s Life” has a scene that everybody should watch.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays the main character, Toby. Jonah Blechman portrays Arthur Gayle, an antagonistic, flamboyant rival who eventually becomes Toby’s good friend.

Early in the movie, Toby tried to impress two of his bully friends as he exchanged insults with Arthur. When he realized that he was an unarmed man in a battle of the wits, Toby went low.

“Well,” Toby said. “At least I’m not a great, big homo.”

Arthur didn’t hesitate. He jumped into action and, with an assist from his ankle-biting dog Pepper, beat the heck out of Toby. He pounded him until a weepy Toby took back the insult.

It is a beautiful example of instant karma.

The biographical drama was based on the 1989 memoir by author Tobias Wolff. It was set in the 1950s. That was back in an age when a guy would expect to get punched in the mouth for saying such a terrible thing.

Today, people say things like that all the time. They just do not do it in person. Instead, social media has made it easy for people to hide behind their keyboard as they cast extreme insults at people they mildly disagree with.

Sometimes, those comments are about sports, but more often they are about politics. Every June, those hate-filled comments are aimed largely at the LGBTQ+ community.

Whether it is sports, politics or just bigots being bigots, about 99 percent of these comments have one thing in common. They would not be said face to face.

The keyboard takes away the fear of getting punched in the mouth for making such comments, and that is too bad. We were a much more civilized society when people thought that they could lose a few teeth over a sexist, racist or bigoted comment.

When Pete Buttigieg made an appearance in Butte to promote the non-partisan Montana Plan, a ballot initiative to get rid of dark money in Montana politics, the homophobes came out of the woodwork.

Again, they were not brave enough to come out in person. It was all on social media comments, but they were emboldened enough to use their names.

It does not seem to matter that Buttigieg is an eloquent speaker who can identify with people on both sides of the political spectrum. It does not seem to matter that he is a former Navy intelligence officer who went to war for our country. It does not seem to matter that he is a loving husband and father to his two sons.

The commenters do not care that he seems to be a genuinely nice guy to everyone he encounters.

People get caught up in the fact that he is married to a man, and that means that his good ideas no longer matter. They called him names and made gay jokes.

Lots of them.

These kind of comments come at us hot and heavy for 365 days a year, but June seems to really set off so many bigots. That is because June was declared “Pride Month” by President Bill Clinton in 1999.

So, every June is turned into a celebration where the LGBTQ+ community and their friends rejoice in the freedom to be themselves, and nothing seems to hurts the soul of a bigot more than seeing people he hates revel in love and inclusion.

The sad part is that they use their religious beliefs as their rationale for spewing hate toward the community on the internet. They often do this by using selective bible verses, forgetting what Jesus said about loving thy neighbor and not judging others.

That community is known for wanting to simply live and let live, yet it is the target of so much hate, much of it based on religion. I went Catholic school for four years, and I must have been sick the days that they taught us to hate gay and transgender people.

If you feel your religion forces you to hate anyone — or suppress anyone who is different from you — then you should seriously look into a new religion.

We saw this hate spew on social media with the announcement of Pride Night for every professional team in the month of June. Each announcement was filled hate and ignorance in the comments.

Several San Francisco Giants, who used their religious believes as their reasoning, wrote anti-gay bible verses on their hats during Pride Night in San Francisco.

No, I am not condemning the players for that. I will always stand up for the rights of Landon Roupp, J.T. Brubaker and Ryan Walker to express any opinion that they want, even if it such a small-minded view. I will stand by anybody’s rights to express free speech, even when I disagree with that speech with every fiber of my being.

However, it is rich that the United States Department of Justice announced it was investigating Major League Baseball for violating the players’ religious rights after the league issued warnings to the players that writing on their hats amounts to a uniform violation. As if an employer cannot stop an employee from writing on a work uniform.

Even richer is how these players suddenly became the darling of the shut-up-and-dribble crowd because they agree with the small minds who used their platform to try to bring down others.

These people came out of the woodwork with their use of the First Amendment to defend the anti-gay baseball players. They thought that political speech was courageous.

Wait. When did it suddenly become OK for an athlete or sportscaster to have a political opinion? Well, maybe it is only admissible when the athlete’s opinion pushes back against social justice for all.

The irony here is off the charts.

Lebron James, you shut up.

Steph Curry, put a lid on it.

Hunter Hess, zip it and go play in the snow.

But let’s hear what you have to say Mr. Brubaker. Do tell, Josh Hokit. You hate the same people we hate, so go on.

Of course, hate is nothing new. Humans have been finding reason to hate one another since the dawn of time. It is one of the things we do best.

But once upon a time, it was taboo to be so openly racist, sexist or homophobic. We used to pretend that the men in the board rooms judged people by the content of their character and not the color of their skin or their gender.

Sure, we would say bad things and tell those inappropriate jokes. But we would turn our head side to side to make sure the words were staying discreet.

Otherwise, you might get punched in the teeth.

Now people are calling strangers horrific things on social media. Now they are using their real name as they gay bash in the comment section. They think they are being the good guy, or the smart guy, as they blame victims of crimes in the comments below news stories.

Social media didn’t start the problem, but it certainly threw fuel into the fire, turning a bonfire into a full-on catastrophe.

It never used to be this way. At least we used to pretend like we liked everybody. And the unarmed man in a battle of the wits had to stay silent or risk the immediate consequences.

Now, too many people are talking as if they have no fear of getting punched in the face for something that they say, and that is not always a good thing.

Tobias Wolff will tell you that.

— Bill Foley, who knows what it is like to be punched in the face, can be reached at foles74@gmail.com. Follow him at twitter.com/Foles74 or Bluesky at @foles74.bsky.social. Listen to him on the ButteCast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.