And the guy will be fully justified in coming to the conclusion that (a) the woman doesn't trust him;

Indeed. And will be fully justified in feeling insulted; after all, that lie communicates the sentiment "I think there's a non-trivial possibility that you will turn hostile/abusive/violent if I reject your advances". I'd sure feel insulted at having such a sentiment expressed toward me.

Of course, if in this situation the man and woman don't know each other, or are very casual acquaintances, then it's not really a big insult, because hey, random dude off the street could easily be that kind of asshole. But the closer your acquaintance is, the more insulting it is to use the lie-to-smooth-rejection.

I think the big thing to remember is that the meaning of something isn't the dictionary definitions of the words combined with the rules of syntax. If someone asks you what you though of a play, wanting to know what you thought of them, and you know this, saying "the acting was bad" is intentionally misinterpreting their question. It is an example of lying with truth.

I would expect someone who presses me for an answer would actually want to know the answer, but maybe I just have bad social skills.

There is one thing I dislike about lying. It's considered rude to tell the truth in certain situations, because it signals that you don't care about that person, because people who care lie, because people who care don't want to appear rude. If people didn't try to signal, things would be better off, but if you lie, you're not only signalling that you care, you're increasing the need everyone else has to signal. You're making things more confusing for other people. It's basically a large-scale prisoner's dilemma. It's like talking in a noisy room, where the other person can hear you if you speak up, but that just makes it noisier for everyone else.

I agree with everything you said on a personal level, but I think you're committing the fallacy of false generalization.

You (and I) both place a very high value on truth over comfort. We feel incredibly uncomfortable -- perhaps even painfully so -- when we suspect that any of our beliefs might be false. Therefore, for us, finding out that a friend was lying to us (as well as to himself) is tantamount to experiencing a direct attack.

However, not everybody in the world is like us. Other people place a very high value on comfort and positive reinforcement. When they talk to their friends, they do so not in order to Bayes-adjust their beliefs, but in order to reinforce their feeling that they are valued, needed, and cared about.

Note that this does not necessarily mean that such people do not care about truth. They often do; but truth-seeking is not the reason why they engage in conversations.

So, for people who value comfort in their relationships, having a friend like moridinamael would be ideal. And I can't state with any amount of certainty that their worldview is inferior to mine.

These are good examples. I want to add one that I've observed/experienced, somewhat related to this one:

deliberately simplifying to produce a 30-second version of a 30-minute thought

Sometimes, you're talking to a person who has some importance in your life — a relative, let us say — and they ask you a question about your life (some aspect of your life that doesn't affect them directly). You know that, if you tell them the truth, their reaction will be to lecture you, berate you, give you unwanted advice, yell at you, or otherwise engage you in an unproductive mode of interaction. You know this because this has happened before; you are quite sure that this interaction won't change your mind (because you have good reasons for living your life the way you do, as opposed to the way your interlocutor wants you to), nor will your protests or arguments change their mind (because of their irrationality). Neither is it likely that this person will respond to requests to drop the subject.

So, you lie. Result: continued peaceful, pleasant conversation.

What do people here think of the moral status of such lies? I am genuinely curious. I myself am somewhat torn, and I'd like opinions.

This has been my experience as well. Telling the truth requires just saying what's on your mind, sometimes adjusting to avoid making people mad or to be better understood. Lying requires a lot of effort and is stressful.

I agree that in some cases, including the homophobic parents example, lying can be justified. Even in significantly more mild cases, I can see lying as occasionally consequently the better course of action, even if you take into account the chance of the lie being found out and trust being lost/hurt to other people due to being lied to.

However, correct me if I am wrong but you seem to be arguing something much stronger than this? From my read this article promotes at least accepting, maybe even encouraging, using white lies as a way to ease potentially uncomfortable social situations. I'd guess some of the other commenters (particularly Alicorn) have a similar read, and that's prompting some strong reactions. While white lie culture may be common, and going against the grain (e.g. replying that you're not particularly keen on some item of clothing when asked by an acquaintance) may go against our social instincts, refusing to say you don't like things in many situations disallows useful opinion giving in all similar situations. If I want to get a second opinion on something, I want to ask someone who will give me information. If no matter their true opinion, they'll give some mild nicity/white lie to spare my feelings, I'm not going to learn much. If every time someone asks if their friends if their new hair cut suits them their friends must say yes, that person is both never going to learn they have a haircut few people like and maybe more importantly they're going to start automatically downgrading similar praise, quite correctly, because "people saying my haircut is nice" has zero correlation to the haircut being nice.

I accept that many, maybe even a significant majority of, people do just look for compliments or niceties some of the time. I accept that giving them those compliments rather than honesty may be better for their self-esteem in the short term. However, I have found that so long as I present myself as direct but gentle from the start and don't hide honesty from someone then spring it on them at a bad moment, a vast majority of even those compliment seekers at least respect gentle honesty and many of them find it refreshing. Perhaps this is in part due to my social group being unusually tolerant, and this strategy would fail elsewhere.

On the other side, I prefer people to be honest with me and attempt to self-modify towards being someone who would, in all but the most convoluted situations, prefer in the long term to be told the truth in response to all serious questions. I do this specifically so I can appear to be a person who it is better to tell the truth to in effectively every case, because I want to be able to reliably get true opinions. This is something I have never had a negative reaction to once explained, and has been the gateway to many interesting conversations.

Due to these working well for me and the large advantages of being able to communicate openly with greatly reduced fear of unintended offence provided by a general near-universal policy of honesty, I remain very skeptical of the idea that the habit of looking for reassurance at the expense of honest advice or opinions is something to be respected or encouraged (especially in rationalist circles where truth-seeking is prized).

Last note: I see the saying the truth but bending the meaning to be polite as signaling to someone that you don't quite mean what you're saying subtly enough that if (and only if) they care about your true opinion enough to pay attention to what you say and ask a followup question you'll tell them the full story. If they were just looking for a generic nicity, they either won't notice your slightly careful wording, or should not request information they do not want. This is useful for people who may have reason to want your true opinion, and as a way of avoiding getting into the habit of telling white lies. It's rarely hard to avoid the question or skip over it even if you can't come up with a convincing not-lie, so long as you don't get too obviously caught up in debating internally what to say or how to avoid offense first.