you are completely wrong because fantasy lack one single thing which made med. antigay (and they were not as anti gay as fifties of last century btw)

christianity. kick it out and bring back paganism and the intolerance against other people does drop considerably.

furthermore as a player character in rpgs is single most powerful being in all existence... or at worst hundred times more powerful than any law establishing entity like a kingdom.
He/she can marry anyone he/she wants and no frigging pathetic weakling can say no to that.

on DA2

rejecting someones advances does result in negative reputation. but there should be an option to let him down gently and then rise rep. later as a friend. or an option to tell him to gtfo.
I really can't see that being an issue here.

I highly doubt that christianity was the only reason that made the people anti-gay then.

@Adzeth: You completely missed my point there. I just said that humans in the most fantasy worlds are technologically (and for the most part, socially) as advanced as they were in the middle ages.

And a bit off-topic here. Games try to be more realistic nowadays and people say things like "that's not realistic at all.." when a ragdoll effect is a bit over the top or something.
It's nice that games make some reference into a real world situations but I thought games supposed to be mostly just fun and unrealistic. Well, not the simulators of course. =)
Hmm.. Gay-simulator made by heterosexual.. I would buy it. =P

I think you will find the two most popular characters in Fallout: New Vegas are both gay, Veronica and Arcade. I think gaming needs less stereotypes and more characters who are simply people, their sexual orientation should be irrelevant to the quality of their writing. I liked DA:O: Zevran but he was a walking stereotype and don't get me started on out and proud Anders in DA2.

No. Relationships and identifying with your character are huge in games. The cry of relief on various forums when gay characters were introduced was quite surprising What peeved me about Dragon Age 2 was I'm a complete tart/love to explore all dialog options if I can. The women were cold, yet Anders was like a horse at a gate, so to speak. I didn't have to do anything without his character responding to me with much gusto. I found that leading (the lack of choice), which was annoying (not the fact his character was gay) LOL What's wrong with that? It happens in real life, so why not in games? As long as it's not over-the-top and has the option to decline advances, I have no problem with it

Chalk it up to being attractive to both sexes, which is quite flattering

EDIT: added clarification

I hope some modders create a 'hot coffee' like mod for Skyrim so it becomes the first game where you can simulate inter-species straight and gay sex.

Anyhoo, I really don't care about gay characters in games.. as long as they're not just offensive of course. If some players enjoy it, why not?
And if for some reason they become very annoying I'll create the saga of Smannesman the Gay-Slayer in the land of Skyrim. It's just a game.

only? of course not. The biggest reason which overshadowed most other reasons?

definitely.

Whole ancient European world didn't really care about that. Greeks didn't even care about sex with goats.
Pagans? Eastern European ones? not much either. Japan till Christianity? they allowed it although marriages were not allowed for blood reasons. But if a samurai wanted to fuck a boy, samurai fucked the boy and nobody cared. Even the boy as it would mean he would get some coin.
Need to research more about Islam. I know they were more civilized than Christian nations for centuries (including sex.) but what was their treatment of homosexuals I admit I don't know.

Arcade was gay? I never found that out about him

I think the media in general needs that, not just gaming

Zevran was a completely incorrigible manwhore but he'd be the first person to admit it.

You know, there was lots of heated discussion on this side of the pond about the article where they revealed there are daycare centers in Sweden where they teach small children about the gay rights, children (nor the adults, caretakers) are not called "boys" and "girls" but just "friends", ie. trying to hide the genders from the children.

Even more discussion came from the rumours that in some Swedish school they took (or wanted to take) urinals out of boys' toilets, because boys shouldn't be allowed to pee standing up, as girls couldn't do it either. Peeing while standing was considered to express the patriarchal predominance of men and shit.

I have no idea if any of that is actually true and what to think about all of it, but I'll still put the old joke here:

A Swedish couple gets a baby, their first-born. Their friends come to congratulate them:

- Congratulations! Is it a boy or a girl?

- We don't know, we'll let it decide itself when it reaches adulthood.

One of the first things he says when you ask about him is "Now you're wondering why some man hasn't come along and swept me off my feet".

Which raises questions about the lizardmen's tails...

You are implying that there's been considerable evolution in the human mind's capabilities during the last 800 or so years? Even if that is not your point, you're still saying that they're capable of building some insane buildings and becoming demigods, but they're unable to say "oh, so you're a dude and like dudes, that's cool, that's cool".

How about you tell her "I'm sorry, I'm gay" if you really want a correct analogy with RL. I really don't think that many would hold against you the fact you have a different sexual orientation.

Or even better, tell a gay guy that's hitting on you that you like women (if you want to transfer the situation to RL). I doubt it will cause a downrep. Besides the whole situation is preposterous. If you're straight and have a gay friend he would not hit on you knowing your orientation. They should have never made Anders initiate the conversation and this would have never become an issue. That's where they failed, not in having gay relationships.

Hmm, must've been distracted and missed that line. Oh well next time I play I was planning to make him my main companion anyway

Yeah, it definitely was the biggest reason, but even if it hadn't been for it, I doubt it would've been as common and accepted as nowadays.