Thats exactly what is was.
It was a physical assault on a gay man. A reporter describing such an event would not say, for example, that the assailant "bashed" the victim with a tire iron. He would say he "struck" him. The term "gay bashing" is used to describe a much wider field of activities. This is agenda journalism, not an attempt to stay with who, what, where, when rules.
I would have termed it "attempted murder," actually.