The sad part is those dads look back and think they weren't hard enough on the kids.... I wanted to tell this one man I knew, "No wonder your son's a mess, he's afraid to even talk to you..."
Sounds like "crazy talk" to me.
The issue may have been equally how the mother dealt with the child than just the father's influence. Did the mother encourage the clinging and baby the child to "make up for" the overbearing father? Both parents teach, guide, and influence a child. I've known several gays whose fathers were (from their perception) overly strict or cold, etc. But it was the mother's reaction actually made things worse by undermining the father and promoting wrong-gender behavior.