How old is the article? Because they've sinced dismissed "implicit association" tests as junk science and largely worthless.
Looks like it was from 2012.
Do you have links to the articles that identify it as junk science?
I've looked around and can find 4 or 5 more referencing the 2012 study, but nothing in regards of any subsequent studies that refuted or dismissed the hypothesis.
There have been other data reference points to use that also seem to fall in line with the idea that those who outwardly express the most vehemently anti-gay sentiments, seem to coincide with certain behaviors that indicate otherwise.
I won't link the article directly, simply due to some subject matter in there that would violate forum rules, but if you'd like to find it, it's on buzzfeed, and the article title is:
According To <insert adult website name here>, The South Watches More Gay inappropriate content Than Any Other Part Of The U.S.
In a nutshell, in states where the majority of the populations are anti-gay (at least publicly, and in terms of how they vote), they have the highest percentage of distinct users (determined by IP address to weed out the cases of the same user repeat-watching) searching for content of the Gay and Trans genre.
Now, the possibility exists that is a small segment of people all watching the content...however, it's more likely that there are some people who are bashing it when they're out in public, but when they're alone on their PC when nobody is watching, it's a different story...
However, I know a lot of conservatives like to dismiss theories like these simply because they perceive it as a "gotcha"-style/"loaded question" tactic from the left where they're being presented with the premise "You're either supportive of us, or you're secretly gay yourself".
But in reality, the idea is worth consideration. In most cases, hating a certain attribute is a learned behavior and not something that someone is just going to start doing out of the blue. So it stands to reason that if someone was being taught to hate a certain thing, it likely mean that their parents, community, or social circles are against that thing...so a person who secretly has those feelings, who lives among them, and wants to remain accepted by the group, is likely to be the most vocal in trying to convince the rest of the group "I'm not one of those!" in order to not be shunned.
It's not really unlike how kids with a domineering parental figure at home, who constantly rails against "weakness" and "wimps", will often times act out in ways that are aggressive toward others simply to try to prove to everyone "I'm not wimp" due to being taught at home that it's a terrible thing and something unacceptable to their father.