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You can see the whole Earth from the Moon!

Can you hear it? The stampede of Hollywood actors scrambling to condemn Alec Baldwin? The cacophony of icy tweets and acidic statements snarled by publicists like demented pantomime horses? That din of Tinseltown turning inwards when, in a rare fit of righteousness, of actually believing in something real and heartfelt and important, it stands up, en masse, to one of its own?

No? That’ll be because there is no sound. Put a glass to your ear, press it up against the Hollywood sign and all you’ll hear is the crashing Pacific – and of course, the daily wail of punctured dreams.

Baldwin, that tornado of toddler behaviour, still stands aloft, unscathed. This is after an incident of such violent, naked homophobia that it bears all the nuance of a brick lobbed through a gay bar. On Thursday, perturbed by a now-removed story on the Daily Mail’s website claiming his wife was tweeting during James Gandolfini’s funeral in New York, he replied on Twitter about the (gay) journalist who wrote it:

“I’m gonna find you, George Stark, you toxic little queen, and I’m gonna fuck … you … up.”

(For an alleged heterosexual, Baldwin certainly has a keen grasp on the dramatic pause). And then:

“If [he means I’d] put my foot up your fucking ass, George Stark, but I’m sure you’d dig it too much.”

And, because A-listers are used to having help in all matters, he incited the public to assist in defending his dishonour:

“I want all of my followers and beyond to straighten out this fucking little bitch.”

What would the reaction be if it were racist epithets? Mel Gibson, of course, found Hollywood to be a distinctly chillier place after his antisemitic outburst in 2006, when he reportedly barked at the police officer arresting him for driving under the influence:

“Fucking Jews … the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.”

And this week, Paula Deen, America’s fourth-highest earning celebrity chef (according to Forbes), lost contracts with the Food Network, Target, Home Depot, Smithfield Foods and Walmart after admitting that she had, “of course”, used “the n-word”, in a deposition for a lawsuit filed by her former manager.

Has Capital One, the credit card Baldwin advertises, dropped him? Has anyone said anything? I’ve not heard such a sound vacuum since a friend of mine was asked at a ritzy pool party in the Hollywood Hills what he did for a living and he replied: “Nurse”.

It’s not even as if this is a freakish aberration for the actor.

In 2007, he left a message on his 11-year-old daughter’s phone calling her a “rude thoughtless little pig”. (For someone so mired in Hollywood culture, Baldwin must surely be aware of the psychotherapeutic term ‘projection’.)

Three years later he was accused of punching a photographer. A year after, with piquant misogyny, he described (on Twitter), an air stewardess who had thrown him off his flight for refusing to turn his phone off as a “retired Catholic school gym teacher”. And a few months ago he admitted punching another photographer, but denied racially abusing him. When will misogyny and homophobia – two sides of the same dime – be granted equally dubious status as racism?

This week we might be witnessing the Defense of Marriage Act being lowered into the ground, but Baldwin’s rant jumps out as a cold reminder that hatred towards gay people still whistles all around, as alive as ever. And that, clearly, Hollywood helps keep it there.

It keeps it there by refusing to back films such as Behind the Candelabra, idiotically thinking that gay doesn’t pay. It keeps it there by forever casting straight actors to play gay for fear of some kind of homosexual overdose. It keeps it there by perpetuating a culture of shame and silence, a thousand whispers in the ears of LGBT actors: “Keep quiet or your career will meet an early curtain call”.