As a kid I naively thought he was just pretending to be effeminate. We didn’t have many gays in my town, at least not that I knew of.
Sorry to hear about the passing of Jim Nabors. I probably watched every episode in which the Gomer Pyle character appeared (both in Mayberry and then in the Marine setting). At times the episodes were annoyingly simplistic and formulaic, but usually I found them to be moderately amusing, and parts of them very funny. Nabors played the role well, and created an unforgettable character for the millions of persons who watched the shows.