2011: A good year to be gay

of equality in marriage until the end do not ask, do not say this was an extraordinary year. In this case, Aaron Hicklin, editor of Out magazine, impatient of gay culture

Gavin Bond

influential gay pictures

Something strange has happened United States in 2011. With the U.S. political establishment to stop and give the Republicans the Tea Party tangerine on a number of issues from immigration to reductions in trade unions, an area of ??civil liberties took a decisive year. After decades in which the rights of homosexuals have polarized opinion in the United States, the country has just increased in September, when a law two decades old ban on gays and lesbians to serve openly in the armed forces was finally repealed, leading to thousands of gay men by a video presentation on YouTube - just another example of how the Web has changed the gay visibility. Less than two months before New York became the sixth largest and the state to allow same-sex couples to marry. To put this into context, there are more people living in New York in the Netherlands, which in 2001 became the first country to legalize gay marriage.

The struggle for marriage equality was one of the most bitterly divisive in the United States, but after a series of defeats for gay rights advocates, the wind seems to have changed irrevocably in his direction. A series of national surveys this year showed their support for homosexual unions outgunning opposition for the first time since the survey on the subject began in the 1980s - a radical change in three years, when California voters approved a ballot measure overturning of gay marriage. In the 2004 elections, led by Karl Rove enthusiast, as many as 11 states have passed initiatives banning gay marriage vote - the cynical to get out the vote tactics that helped swell the ranks of Republicans in elections

The perception that marriage equality was a poisoned chalice pink continued until the 2008 election, when Obama was careful to clarify that it was not in favor of gay marriage seem to pay attention to warnings from Bill Clinton to be a wide margin. However, in discussions this year between the rabble pack of Republican candidates, the usual rhetoric denouncing gay marriage has been remarkably absent. Even Obama, facing poor odds for a second term, said he supports repealing the Defense of Marriage Act known that prevented federal recognition of gay marriage, even in states where legal.

What has changed in these few years? In many ways, the transformation of attitudes is under way for decades, largely accelerated by the impact of AIDS, gay identity reconfigured around the community and relationships. In television programs Glee

and

Modern Family , gays are not drawn or puppet Punchlines, their relations treated with the same respect as their heterosexual counterparts. They hold hands, kiss, they even share the same bed. This was a quantum leap in the sample as 1990 Will & Grace

, in which gay characters had the scent of "confirmed bachelors" to use the euphemism archaic obituary writers, rarely occur in labor relations, much less in love.

For young gay men and women today the idea that it will be able to marry and have children does not seem strange or controversial. It seems obvious. They see gay couples to marry in states like New York and Massachusetts. Come Neil Patrick Harris, a popular television actor, posing on the red carpet with his partner, David Burtka, and their two children. They listen with their friends directly Lady Gaga gay anthems, and watching shows like included gay True Blood

. Above all, communicate with a diverse group of friends on Twitter and Facebook, where homosexual and heterosexual adolescents revel in their common cultural interests.

Overall a long way in the gay bar with no windows and peepholes in Edinburgh, where I learned to socialize with other gays during my first steps out of the closet. It was in 1993, and the bar was named Chappe, down dark and smoky while starting to feel old, but there was not much to offer. Soon after, he underwent a dramatic metamorphosis exhaust. Sight has been completed, with the bell ringing users use to be admitted. He gave the floor to ceiling doors that folded in the summer, a manufacturer of cappuccino and a new name: Congratulations Coffee

retrospect it is clear that this dramatic metamorphosis paninis poppers, represented a broader change in gay culture, or - if you think the commentator Andrew Sullivan - "inexorable progress" towards the end of gay culture itself. Sullivan may have been too optimistic in a 2005 article he wrote for

New Republic

, welcome retreat from the difference between homosexuals and heterosexuals, but it was the first to articulate the assimilation of gay identity in the mainstream. A year later, when I became editor of the

Out , it seems pertinent to ask what is the role of a gay magazine to serve in a world which, if not post-gay, seemed headed that way.

In Europe, many old prejudices were quickly fall as one country after another expansion of its citizens equal rights to homosexuals. Berlin and Paris, the two gay mayors sworn in 2001, and the appointment of Chris Smith, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport in 1997, Britain was to leave the gay prime minister. Alan Hollinghurst won the Booker Prize in 2004

The Line of Beauty

, unashamedly a gay coming of age of the novel, later adapted for television by the BBC. At the same time, pay millions each week

Little Britain

and

The Catherine Tate Show

both displayed characters sent to gay stereotypes without reinforcing way.

But it was Europe. Latin was another matter. A few months after my arrival in New York the country was rocked by a brutal murder in Wyoming, where a 21-year-old Matthew Shepard, was led by two men in a field gun mounted remotely and tortured. Praying for his life, tied to a fence and left for dead. It was in 1998, and the treatment of Oscar Wilde in England a century before it burns its way into gay consciousness as a symbol of the unfathomable depth of hatred that can be submitted. There is also talk of post-gay culture seems grossly insensitive.

since a wave of suicides among teenagers Gay-related harassment or intimidation reminded many of us who live in bubbles cosmopolitan than New York or San Francisco, that life as a gay teen incomprehensible even to be alone. The popular belief that people are now free to leave at a younger age has been challenged by a major study last year

2010 The State of Higher Education for LGBT people

, which indicates that some students returning to college in the closet for fear of reprisals for being gay. One respondent recalled a meeting stumbling on campus in which a student shouted, "We can not accept homosexuals or burn at the stake - are you with me. '" Burn "just to get the answer exuberant
• Given the violent rhetoric than it is somehow surprising to discover that the main supporters of the anti-gay policies that led to the witch hunt in Uganda are associated with family, a secret American evangelical organization. America, after all, is not like other Western democracies. Some parts are deeply religious, and the country is so great that liberal attitudes do not grow outward from New York or Los Angeles as they do, eg London, Paris or Berlin. In any case, the antipathy towards liberalism pusillanimous East and West Coast fans the flames of homophobia. As the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, the most equal state grants its citizens the most aggressive opponents of gay retirement. There are too many cities where the simple act of holding hands is an invitation to a beating or worse. And while the Internet has enabled young gay men and women who are more connected than ever, with the affirmation and support with the click of a mouse, the Web has also given rise to new forms of harassment and intimidation.
Yet, as more gays to come out, it became more difficult for their friends, relatives and friends that stand in the way of their fundamental rights. In September, the campaign for marriage equality found support from an unusual industry when former Vice President Dick Cheney, whose daughter is a lesbian, has appeared on a popular day, announcing his support for homosexual unions, by adding the coda "Freedom means freedom for all."

Visibility

creates change. Reality TV, despite its questionable ethics, very gay has led people in the salons of America in 2009, the most popular shows, Simon Cowell

American Idol

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