Asklemmy

You've gotten enough good answers that I think it okay to address a tangent.

Things are definitely at the point where christofascists, and other hate driven ideologies are getting louder.

But, and this is vitally important as to why the pushback is making it a matter of public discourse at the level you're asking about, there's more allies now than ever.

Be ready for old man talking here, and ignore if not interested. Disclaimer: I have arthritis, and it's easier to type gay than LGBTQ, so I'll be using the shorter word for that reason, not as an exclusion.

Back in the seventies and eighties, gay rights was a thing for mostly gay people. Before that it had been gaining minor support, and the eighties were when social restrictions started changing enough that gay people were allowed to have some degree of public awareness in both news and fiction.

I keep bringing it up in various places, but Billy Crystal played the first recurring openly gay character on television. That was in 1977, and ran until 1981. I don't think it can be said enough how huge that was in bringing awareness of gay people as just people was. That role brought gay into our homes and lives in a way nothing had before.

When something makes a group real to the majority, makes things stop being a dirty secret and just another part of life, you get kids growing up that are more open and accepting. As acceptance grew, so did the amount of people coming out.

As people came out, the straights realized that not only had they always known gay people, but they liked them, and even loved them for years, sometimes a lifetime. When that starts spreading, you have more people that are willing to support gay people and their rights as fellow humans.

Instead of being pariahs, gay people became part of life, part of our hearts. Eventually, more and more people that didn't have direct relationships with someone gay became allies, supporters.

However, the more gay people became a part of life, the more noise bigots made, in their own homes and in public. So, instead of it being a dirty little secret nobody talked about, that way of thinking got nastier and louder. Before, it wasn't something everyone would even know about until much later in life, but as the gay rights movement in the seventies started building up steam, you had more hatred being spewed as well. There had been before, but it was more likely to be handled with dismissive or contemptuous remarks rather than outright venom and bile in the open.

Now, us folks that were kids during the late 70s and early 80s didn't just accept gay folks. We would often defy elders that opposed gay rights or bad talked them. As time passed and we grew up, the segment of that generation that became allies tended to be more and more vocal in our support. By the nineties, my generation was moving into adulthood and willing to vote our conscience. We were willing to put our time and money into the cause. Sometimes, we'd put our bodies on the line when things got ugly.

Move forward to now, and you've got two or three generations actively and loudly opposing the bigots, and not just the gay people. The bigots are smaller in number, but have been pandered to by political groups around the world, so have more weight than their numbers should give them.

Mind you, the bigots also include people of every generation too. Don't imagine that there aren't kids even that spew the same kind of nastiness that's been used since before the 70s. But there's more in direct opposition to them, and plenty of passive dismissal of the bigotry. Bigotry is not a relic of the past, nor is it limited to older generations; some of the loudest and most obnoxious hatred gets spewed by younger adherents. But the seeming percentage of hate is lower in younger generations, and the seeming percentage of outright support is higher.

That puts us in the situation we're in, where hate has a bigger voice than it should, and love/acceptance has to shout louder to oppose it.