That's why they say it. I've noticed a pattern among people of that particular nature: They love to play the victim. Just look at how they phrase their efforts to stop same-sex marriage. They don't say "we don't want them gays to marry!", they say "it's an attack on traditional marriage", or "an attack on religious freedom."
Everything they say and every way they say it is specifically designed to paint the opposition as the bad guy. We don't want equal rights under the law, we want to force our evil on their churches and their children!
Look at it another way. Did it ever occur to you that they're afraid?
They don't understand what you are. They don't understand how you feel or what made you feel it. If they acknowledge you as a gay person, what does that say about them? If gay is "normal," what does it say about their own sexuality. What would it take to make THEM just like YOU?
Some people -- like us here in the Cantina -- deal with the Unknown by studying up on it. But not everybody does it that way. Some get scared. And when they get scared, they sometimes get angry.
We're writers in here. Understanding the Other is part of our job; we have to sympathize with the villains, at least enough to write him believably. That would be an interesting writing exercise: write a homophobe as a believable, if not entirely sympathetic character.
For the Record: I'm not saying I agree with anything they're saying. But I have to try to understand them, even if I don't agree. And just like I don't judge the gay, I can't judge the homophobe, either (Now you can see why "Loving my neighbor" is all the Holy Work I can handle).