When it comes to bigotry we all sometimes pick bad choice of words. This is why I leave some leeway for occasional poor phrasing. Drunk Mel Gibson like moments, or split second anger, or even just a bad day can lead to saying something that sounds bigoted to someone else.. What I watch for though is a pattern of long term behaviour of extreme rhetoric. Not one-offs or political criticism.
I know I’m not perfect myself. I struggle with the issue of phrasing all the time when it comes to debating about Turkey, or the former Yugoslavians, or especially religion. In the case of religion I don’t see religious people as all terrible. There are certainly fanatics but I actually trust and respect a moderate religious person with a moral compass far more than I trust an atheist that’s a sophist.
Someone religious might interpret my atheist views and criticism of religion as bigotry towards them as a person rather than a criticism of aspects of what they believe. When I was a young man I sometimes used to get into heated arguments with my own mother on Christianity. Adam Sandler’s mother in the Waterboy… that was my mother. It’s not that I hated my mother. I just disagreed with her on the subject of Christianity.