Christians and homophobia

I've resisted posting anything on this, not because I don't have strong feelings about it, but precisely because I do have strong feelings. I was amused by Dave's rather barbed cartoon, but I really appreciated this quite balanced post. I guess that I have two questions: what can we do as christians to change the world's opinion of us (not that the world's opinion matters, but it would be encouraging if christians were generally seen as spiritual, prayerful, trustworthy, etc. rather than bigoted and homophobic); and if some sections of the church have decided that our LGBT brothers and sisters are the enemy, when are they going to treat them as they should?