Shocked at being told I had “the plague”

So it is 2016 and last night as the old year was preparing to leave, I got told that I had the plague: the gay plague. I thought that this sort of language was only to be expected from conservatives in the US like Walter Kubitz in Virginia. But this was in Ireland, from someone who ought to know better. To say that I was disappointed in this person is something of an understatement.