It would've been an okay time for gays during the "don't ask, don't tell" era back when people didn't mingle in other people's business for gossip and drama.. unless you were a prick of a woman, a fag or Richard Nixon wanting to know confidential albeit vapid details about the Democratic Party.
1980s would've been fucking rough though because of the AIDs epidemic with anybody who got it, regardless of their sexuality, people thinking of them as a fag. Did you know that Charlie Sheen is HIV positive? That man is as straight as an arrow and even he has it.