Far easier to villify. Gossip is juicy, but homosexuality is … y’know, icky and yucky and an abomination and get that fornicatin’ pervert away from us God-fearing christians!
Isn’t it obvious?
“They’re embarrassing me. They’re embarrassing America. They turned the Navy into a floating joke. They ruined all our best names like Bruce, and Lance, and Julian. Those were the toughest names we had!”
Siege, everybody gossips. That might be at least one reason. 
Not everybody does the gay thing, though. And ‘perpetuating the genes of the flock’ issues aside, there’s also the ‘ick’ factor.