I think people have the right to belive what they want. I do admire Gerard as well as the rest of My Chemical Romance a great deal. And I think to some extent they deserve to be called heroes. They've accomplished a lot, and they're positive role models for their fans.
As far as smoking goes, when have you ever heard him condone it? A vice is a vice, his could be a lot worse.
He's not my hero, but I do find him someone that I can admire. I'm borderline jealous that he gets to do what he loves as a job, I am jealous that he got Lyn-Z (I was barking up that tree for years, but somehow she just...didn't seem very interested in me in return), and what he's doing right now in the comic book world is something worth admiring, or at least it is to someone like me, who has been a comic book junkie for years. Him smoking doesn't change my opinion of him. I smoke, and I'm no less of a person for it.
I do wish people would stop putting him up on that pedestal, though. The higher up you put them, the longer they have to fall.
He's my hero because he was able to do everything he ever wanted to do in his life, even somehing so incredible like be in a band or write his own comic. He achieved everything he ever dreamed about as a loser kid locked up in his room. I may not want to be in a band, or write a comic, but I want to be a novelist or an actress. Or Both! Looking up to him makes me believe that even how impossible my dreams seem to be, they are still possible.
I don't really listen to MCR anymore, but I've always seen Frank as more of a hero to me than Gerard.