In the jousei series Oruchuban Ebichu, the character of Ma-kun is apparently attracted to the main hamster character of Ebichu. He treats her to ice cream and blushes around her, but never makes any overt sexual gestures (since he's a human and she's a goddamn anthropomorphized hamster...) Instead, he channels that sexual energy into pleasing his girlfriend, who has no idea he's turned on by, well, a cute rodent. Everyone is happy, no one is harmed.
Ma-kun doesn't deny his attraction to Ebichu, but he doesn't act on it directly either. And he's not a zoophobe as a shameful response to it.
But that's where a lot of homophobes land - they are faintly turned on by homoerotic imagery, are shamed by it, and go into full blown crazy denial mode over it. That doesn't mean they're necessarily gay, and in fact most of them are still very much het. It does mean, however, that they're afraid they might be gay, and go overboard attacking gays as if by punishing their own internal arousal at the homosexual act they can banish it.