Living in a society which has gone pretty far in tolerance I can say that it obviously isn't generally true that homosexuals can't be accepted in society. Sweden decriminalized homosexuality at about the same time as the US but today has gay marriage and being bigoted against gays is certainly more controversial than being gay.
FWIW, I think the same is mostly true here in the US, except in rural areas. I'd consider Santorum's views to be a rather extreme outlier, the more common concern that conservative heteros have is that gay marriage would somehow "spoil" hetero marriage, particularly when viewed through a religious prism.