From what I remember back then it isn't that people assumed only gay people could catch it (otherwise why would absolutely everybody be paranoid about it)... .

From what I remember back then it isn't that people assumed only gay people could catch it (otherwise why would absolutely everybody be paranoid about it)... ... but that plenty of people thought it was a convenient way to get rid of gay people. Genocide by omission, if you will. We don't talk about this era anywhere near as much as we should.