I've been doing MMO's for a while now and honestly... someone's sex life shouldn't ever come into the picture, unless your just that way. I've been around people enough ingame that yeah, depending on who your around and what you say to the rest of the community you could get jacked by some of the less respectful people. The groups I play with (Guild, Clan or what ever name you call a set group) will make sexual jokes from time to time, but I pick my Guilds with care if I have to find a new one.
Online hate, no matter where it's at is not needed, but it's just like being in public. I wouldn't go to a bar if the sign in the front window said '->-bleeped-<-s need not enter' (not like you'll find that irl, but you get my drift).
I didn't read the IGN article but I can bet, if someone is complaining that they're getting jacked for being LGBT, they must have said something to someone and it went around. I would never tell anyone ingame my sexual preference because what I do out of game has nothing to do with how I perform ingame.
For the people that get caught on a voice server like Ventrilo or Teamspeak, again I wouldn't use a voice system to talk unless I knew the people I was talking to.
... but then again, I'm an antisocial SoB ingame. I'm not 'looking for friends', it's not a social networking thing for me, I just wanna play the game.
Your results may very.
