She's always had those views. The point about that is that there are people on this thread suggesting it's her age that has led to her having those views. That's kind of condescending towards those of us who are around her age and don't have those views and/or never had.
One of the things that ousted the Tory/Major governments was that their social agenda was increasingly perceived as being out of kilter with the majority opinion on social issues in the UK. That's why they ended up going for David Cameron: he was the figurehead of Conservatives with right wing economic views but progressive social views. As we know, that division within the Party (authoritarian versus liberal social views) was one that ran deep, both within the country and within the Party.
There was an enormous kickback against the illiberal social views of the Conservative Party in the 80s. Lots of extra-governmental political pressure groups protesting against legislation that seemed to legally enforce views such as those of AW, that were popular (very popular) with a good swathe of the UK (and particularly amongst older Conservative voters and Party members, and some Labour voters, tbh) but increasingly perceived as being deeply unpopular with metropolitans and younger voters.
There was also a lot of dissent within the Conservative Party about that particular direction of travel. Remember, Portillo 'came out' as bisexual prior to his leadership bid. It both served as damage limitation and as a signal to more progressive elements that there would be a change of direction in the area of social legislation.
I'm going on about this at length because there seems to be an enormous aporia where there should be knowledge about really recent history. It worries me. You really can't talk about twenty years ago as some kind of semi-Victorian period, where people, en masse, held extraordinarily old-fashioned views on gay sexuality.
In fact, the situation was far more conflicted. It was more the case that, socially the UK was becoming far more liberal, progressive and tolerant - particularly in metropolitan areas, and this produced a certain retrenchment amongst elements of society that felt threatened by this - and, indeed, it may well have been that anger against changing social mores became a signifier for certain groups of a whole range of social and economic changes that they felt 'left them behind'.
The Conservatives tended to direct their legislation to appeal to this 'left behind' group, which worked for quite a long time but - ultimately - was a significant factor in their subsequent loss of power. I'd say that they jumped the shark completely when they targeted single mothers (along with gay people, people on benefits, etc.).
AW is a complex figure from this period. In some ways, she seems emblematic - her views are extremely socially conservative and mirror a lot of the legislation the Conservatives brought in. I strongly suspect she is the model for Dolores Umbridge in the Harry Potter series (conservative views; an extraordinary performance of the signifiers of a hyper/reactionary femininity allied to authoritarian impulses). In other ways, she is clearly an individual, whose choices are propelled by deep, personal issues.
On the whole, she's far enough away from real power now for me to find her somewhat tragic and also very interesting as a case-study.
On the other hand, it's very interesting to see that those issues, of which she was a part whilst in government (the divide between the socially progressive metropolitans and the socially conservative/authoritairan 'left-behinds') have continued to be a major issue in both the Conservative Party and the UK.