Actor and comic Tracy Morgan and movie director Brett Ratner were already in the running for committing the biggest high-profile anti-LGBT slur of 2011. Who would have thought they would get competition from, of all people, Neil Patrick Harris?

Harris twice uttered the word 'tranny' while co-hosting the USA morning show Live With Kelly last week and suffered instant backlash from an LGBT community that has become hyper-vigilant about holding people accountable for anti-gay slurs.

'For better or worse, popular media and celebrities set the standard for what's acceptable in our culture,' says Herndon Graddick, senior director of programs at the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.

'When a celebrity speaks out against anti-LGBT language, they send a powerful message and set an example for millions of fans. What’s clear is that homophobia and transphobia no longer have a place in Hollywood.'

Ratner lost the job as producer of next year’s Academy Awards for saying 'rehearsal is for faggots' during a screening of his movie Tower Heist while Morgan has been on something of an apology tour after it became public that he had joked during a comedy club routine that he would stab his son to death if he found out he was gay.

Harris seems to have weathered the storm quickly by issuing an apology via Twitter within hours of last Friday’s telecast saying he 'should have been more thoughtful' and adding that he 'didn’t at all mean to offend.' At Sunday’s high-profile Trevor Live gala in Los Angeles, he performed with partner David Burtka performed and the 'tranny' controversy was not mentioned in most of the news coverage of the star-studded event.

Just last month, the LA Gay & Lesbian Center honored Harris and Burtka with an award for their positive image of family and Harris. On the red carpet that night, Harris admitted to being nervous about maybe saying the wrong thing.

'This [LGBT] community, unique to most, is filled with scrutiny when it comes to what you say and how you say it,' he said. 'So you find yourself having to be very hyper-aware of how you say things lest you ostracize yourself even further.'

Jim Key, a spokesman for The Center, said it recognizes that celebrities 'sometimes make innocent mistakes or don’t recognize the harm in their words.'

But they can indeed do harm.

'We’ve seen far too many tragic consequences of bullying and we know that all too often, the people doing the bullying are taking their cues from the larger culture,' says Key. 'Celebrities who use anti-LGBT language, including the word "gay" to mean something negative, naturally foster the use of that language by many others.'