 "Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride" also explores and satirizes people's reactions to homosexuality through Stan and other characters who react to Sparky's behavior. For example, Stan admits he does not even know what being gay includes, except simply that it "is bad". Also, when Cartman suggests to Stan that Sparky might be at the mall buying leather pants, it satirizes the stereotype that all gay men are engaged in the leather subculture. The episode also mocks what many LGBT activists perceive as hatred and misunderstandings about homosexuality often expressed by anti-LGBT and right-wing activists, including Christian ministers Jerry Falwell and Fred Phelps. This is partially illustrated in this episode by Mr. Garrison's condemnation of homosexuals, rooted in deep-seated fear of his own sexuality. Basing his comment off this episode, Gardiner commented that South Park had a "Queer Lite" attitude towards homosexuality, stating "they are unemphatically tolerant, polymorphously perverse, ambiguously gay affirmative".
