There are large numbers of people who view homosexuality as a wrong and evil. There's a stigma that saying things like "Oh, that's so gay" is not homophobic hate speech because everyone does it. In most situations you can call someone a *** and get away without anyone challenging it, but replace that with any other epithet and you're much more likely to get push back on it.
When Columbine happened, we took the hint about bullying issues revolving around people who are socially awkward or nerdy. When Matthew Shepard was killed, we didn't. Now that five gay men have killed themselves in the last few months because of bullying, I'm hoping that as a nation we wake up to this issue, but I don't think we will.
You have a nation where Carl Paladino can deliver hate speech against homosexuals less than 24 hours after NYPD found and arrested a gang that was torturing homosexuals in an apartment and, somehow, he's still going to be on the ballot in November for Governor of New York and large numbers of people are still going to vote for him.
We, as a nation, deny homosexuals basic rights. It appears that the right to serve in the military is in the process of being granted to them, but what about legal marriage and everything that goes along with it. We let states vote on whether or not two consenting adult males can get married and obtain the rights that go along with it. Doesn't anyone else find that absurd? Iowa figured it out and I wouldn't exactly consider that state to be a hotbed of liberal thought and activity.