I believe Lemmy has the potential for a wider range of discussion and debate than Reddit, or any other social media platform I've been on, simply because of the defederated & community-based system.

In theory, I agree with you - and that was my very hope when I first got into the fediverse. Unfortunately, the reality has proven to be different...

The issue, as you describe, seems to be saying the wrong thing in the wrong place, which, to be honest, is similar to the real world.

Except it's much, much worse than in the real world. I've been in circles with right wingers, and I am notoriously stubborn about not hiding my viewpoint (which very often clashes with that of right wingers), and even there the reaction is less crazy than on Lemmy.

For example, you can't walk up to a group of homosexuals and try to convince them they shouldn't be gay.

That's not the kind of thing I'm talking about. Of course something like that would go over like a lead balloon - in that case also because that's borderline in factual in its assumptions. A better comparison would be a conversation naturally wondering to the risks of anal sex if not done carefully and being chastised and banned for that.

Even if he was, he was in no place to take it into his own hands to address (especially in a secretive way).

I neither said nor implied that, in fact I said quite the opposite...

If you see a lot of toxicity where you browse, maybe your chosen community just isn't a healthy one.

And that's exactly the problem. More work. More digging. More research. People come to these sites to have fun and often don't have the patience nor the interest to filter through all the communities.