Should black people be cabinet ministers? If any national newspaper asked this question there would be protests. Riots, even. Yet today, in light of the David Laws exposé, the Sun saw fit to commission a YouGov survey in which it asked: "Should gay people be cabinet ministers?"

But by asking, the tabloid has exposed something else, something important and something its editor and that of all rightwing newspapers should take note of. There is now a yawning chasm between the press and the public in their attitudes towards homosexuality.

Of those asked, 95% replied that they either didn't mind if a gay person was a cabinet minister, didn't know, or thought it was a good thing. A measly 5% thought gay people should not hold such office. As pro-gay as the public have become, the conservative press hasn't noticed.

When the Telegraph decided to publish details of David Laws's expenses and – oops, we didn't mean to – reveal his sexuality in the process, they presumably didn't expect to provoke widespread sympathy for the minister. Indeed, so much so, that in that same Sun survey today, 52% of those polled thought that the Liberal Democrat should return to the cabinet.

Compare this reaction with that prompted by Jacqui Smith. After her and her husband's creative approach to expenses, voters in Redditch booted the former home secretary out of office last month. The Sun's own-goal statistics are clear: the public haven't gone soft on expenses, they've gone liberal on homosexuality.

Indeed, in January, the British Social Attitudes survey found that 36% believed homosexuality to be wrong, compared with 62% in 1983. That is rapid, radical change – despite a media that continues to daub gay people with puerile innuendo, 1970s stereotypes, and outright lies.

But even when mainstream readers turn on the press en masse for such portrayals, their voices are muffled. Jan Moir's fact-free, hate-splattered column about Stephen Gately prompted more than 25,000 complaints, yet the Press Complaints Commission rejected claims that Moir had broken their code of conduct. And the Daily Mail? It swaggered on with its queer-bashing ways.

Last Tuesday, Richard Littlejohn penned a column to rival Moir's. Writing about a job advertised for an NHS hair-removal specialist to work with transgender people, Littlejohn opined that in order to do the job you would need a "strong stomach and a sense of humour". He continued in his famously sophisticated style: "Whatever next? Bikini waxes for bisexuals?"

The comments underneath the online version read like a Guardian editorial: "The NHS was created to serve all equally," wrote Joshua from Croydon. "Silly, offensive, and uninformed," was another verdict on the article. Those who were offended may as well have broadcast their comments on Pluto for all the difference they made.

Three days later, London's Evening Standard ran a staggeringly homophobic review of Sex and the City 2. Its film critic, Andrew O'Hagan, conflated the "ugly", "greedy" and "imperialist" tendencies of the four female protagonists with their "gay cult of youth", calling them "gay impersonators". This is a franchise loved largely by women and gay men. The Evening Standard is read mostly by well-heeled metropolitans. Thus, the chances of this review chiming with anyone who grabs it outside a tube station are as slim as Sarah Jessica Parker.

So when I wrote on Twitter this morning in reference to the Sun's survey: "Should homophobes edit newspapers?" scores of people repeated the Tweet in collective disgust at the paper. But how loudly does the public have to shout: "We have no problem with homosexuality" for editors to hear? How many complaints does the PCC have to receive before columnists change accordingly?

There is much talk of newspapers dying. If they stand any chance of keeping the life-support machine on they had better start listening to their readers.