Homophobic chanting is unacceptable in this day and age.
A person's sexuality is not a lifestyle choice, like being a chav etc, so to compare songs about chav's etc is inaccurate.
Granted, I don't think anyone goes home having had their day at football ruined by anti-gay chants.
But it is impossible to draw a line between what is acceptable in the context of a football ground and what is acceptable elsewhere.
Quite simply, there is not a point where one stops and another starts. Do kids at football hearing 10,000 take the piss out of a supposedly gay team not take that on board?
I love football banter. But the odd line about someone being Northern, a bit chav or a little tubby is not the same as homophobia - however soft it may be and however few people get annoyed by it.
Tribalism is fine, homophobia and racism are not.
And the songs are really shit anyway...Likewise the tedious crap about being a "small town near..." somewhere they are usually not that geographically close to.
Some would say being a pikey / chav isn't a lifestyle choice. You can be born into it. Being Welsh definitely isn't. And for some people, being gay is a lifestyle choice.
I'm sure kids do take it on board, but I'm also sure it's no worse than anything they hear in the playground.
And apart from anything else, as Frutos has already stated, these chants aren't even hompohobic anyway. Why is everyone so quick to get offended on other people's behalf? It's ridiculous.