'Guest'(one or the other').......
"This is from your article, fourth paragraph, second sentence:"In this article, consideration is given to the manner through which discrimination and homophobia, which may have been heightened because of the AIDS epidemic."

The key words(in caps):
"In this article, CONSIDERATION IS GIVEN to the manner through which discrimination and homophobia, which MAY have been heightened because of the AIDS epidemic"

Two things that set the flags up, when I've seen these types of 'theories', 'May' denotes a possibility, so it would be somewhat foolish to automatically take this as FACT, and it wants to set forth the notion, that the actual 'doer' of the deed is not responsible for their actions.

All be it, the article did bring out some actual fact based stats, which should be considered.
There IS a problem though with trying to blame it even partially, on someone else.
(BTW, the fact that there is a deflection of responsibility, happens to be consistent with what IS clinically known about the psyche of homosexuals.)
Nonetheless, the article DOES address the spread of HIV/AIDS.

GfS