While it's certainly not acceptable to be personally bigoted, there is a difference between personal bigotry and advocating the state to oppress your hated group through violence or threat of violence, a distinction that eludes the Christian Right in the US. Though I'm not surprised. Leviticus, the foundation for homophobic tenants in the Judeo-Christian tradition, was primarily a holiness code for the priesthood of the tabernacle. As Israel was forming as a nation state, leadership sought control through religion. In this holiness code, among many strange symbolic prohibitions, is an attempt to establish a patriarchy, a facet of religion as power tool. Males and females were forbidden from wearing dress customary for the other sex. Eunuchs were cut off from the house of god. And in Deuteronomy and throughout the old testament, the state is granted power over marriage as a tool for reproduction (at the time, growing population meant growing state wealth and power), established men as owners of women, non-reproductive sex was forbidden, sex outside of state-sanctioned female ownership was forbidden, female sexuality was cast as disgraceful and dirty, and homosexual men were cut off from the patriarchy for being "woman-like."
In short, it's my opinion that the bible, especially the old testament, was a tool for state power at the time it was written. It's no wonder that a culturally informed interpretation of the text as promoted by many church institutions is wielded as a political tool to oppress anyone that threatens male privilege--all who subvert binary constraints of gender, sexually liberated women, and the queer community.
I will stop ranting now, I swear...
