“Heterosexism” is tied to “homophobia” but differs in that heterosexism is a bias in favor of heterosexuality as a cultural attitude and homophobia is the reaction of an individual. Like homophobia, heterosexism discriminates against non heterosexual people or attitudes. I think the two terms are comparable to sexism and sexist, because sexism is a bigger picture, cultural attitude word, whereas sexist is an individual prejudice. Heterosexism is a belief that heterosexuality is the only natural or moral mode of sexual interaction, which makes me wonder if it’s tied to religious (particularly fundamentalist) views?
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A Feminist Theory Dictionary 
First off, isn’t calling this concept a variety of ‘sexism’ a bit misleading in a strictly semantic sense? From what I can tell, sexism (and being ‘sexist’) pertains specifically to an attitude held about members of either side of the commonplace sexual binary, not a prejudice regarding choice of sexual partner. Of course, the adopted terminology for reproduction-related prejudices has always irritated me, the word ‘homophobe’ being the more entertaining of them (it’s literal translation is completely contrary to the predisposition that it is commonly used to describe, unless it is assumed that the word ‘homo’ is a functional shorthand for ‘gay person’, which seems, well, kind of ‘homophobic’.)
It is interesting that you cite religiously-based biases as a potential foundation for the mainstream acceptance of heterosexuality as an ineffable norm. I wouldn’t argue for a moment that a lot of the contemporary values that discriminate against non-heterosexual relationships are instilled and motivated by religious doctrine, but I think that considering the basis for the existence of such bias in these religious ideals is intriguing. A lot of Biblical stories (and those of pretty much all texts central to major religions) are reflective of the experiences and observations of a lot of people over the course of alot of time. Religion, aside from being an extremely effective agent of manipulation and mass brainwashing, is also paramount in its applications for maintaining and distributing the accumulated knowledge of a culture. Before it was a great way to get people to sack Jerusalem for profit and posterity, it was a great way to pass on information to the next generation so as to maximize the survival opportunity of the clan.
There are plenty of hilarious superstitions present in these tales of course. Onanism comes to mind, but even that, I think, is rooted in what is essentially a very survival-oriented mode of viewing the world. Masturbation is a completely psychotic activity to partake in if you spend your life roaming the deserts; it is a use of the reproductive mechanism for a completely non-reproductive purpose, and is a waste of energy in the process. I think that a lot of ancient religious dogmas are fundamentally grounded in notions of what is and is not survivalistically preferable. To that end, it makes a huge amount of sense that homosexuality would be scorned; in a small nomadic unit, it’s pretty useless. Throw in a healthy dose of the kind of fantastical exaggeration that inevitably seeps in after thousands of years of modification and it seems like you have a pretty good recipe for homosexuality being cited as a horrible godforsaken sin.
Homosexuality still serves no reproductive purpose, but given that we live in a world with many billions more humans than are needed and many technological services in place that ensure and prolong the human lifespan, it makes much more sense in the context of modern civilization. No longer does it make sense to condemn someone for engaging in a survivalistically inefficient act; survival as we knew it thousands of years ago no longer exists and the same values placed upon sexuality aren’t relevant. Sex is a form of entertainment.
Ultimately, I think the violent predisposition versus homosexuality that exists in our culture is yet another expression of the difficulty we experience in grappling with an environment that we’re not evolved to fully deal with. If you’re worried about the efficiency and survival of a small unit of people, homosexuality IS wrong (unless you somehow overpopulated said unit). If you live in the seething cyclopean dungeon that we have today, your reproductive instincts are merely another excuse to have fun, and judgements about who you choose to indulge these instincts with are unfounded.
i disagree with oakgoat, and i think the entry by nymph doesn’t show the linkage between sexism and heterosexism; she just compare the relation between the pairs homophobia/heterosexism and sexist/sexism, showing the particularity of the firs terms.
but i really think that sexism and heterosexism are too much conected – different from oakgoat’s opinion. monique wittig is a good author, whose writtins can give us hints in this direction. she argues that the very distinction between man and woman is oriented by a heterosexist assumption, the straight mind – the sexual difference only makes sense if we have reproduction and heterosexuality as a background; so sexism is allready heterocentered, allready heterosexim. this two things are impossible to disconect.