And much of THAT is because you can't tell at a glance whether someone is gay; you can't have a "Straights Only" lunch counter because there's no way to verify who's there illegally (in fact, this and the Fourth Amendment is part of what screws (so to speak) anti-sodomy laws). However, if a man can be so savagely beaten that his assailants think him dead, then left tied to a fence post until he ACTUALLY dies from exposure, I'd say the plight is much the same; it's just harder for bigots to identify their victims.