Opinion: Michael Gerson: How the gay rights movement found such stunning success – Boulder Daily Camera

In Washington, D.C. — and everywhere else, I suspect, with a Bohemian pulse — Pride celebrations are in full swing. Some people who are gay have come to resent the relentlessly commercial aspects of the season, reflected in Pride bocce ball sets from Target and Pride dog bandanas from Walmart. But nothing important in America is not monetized. And gay rights are easily the most dramatically successful social movement of the past few decades.

This is not to say gay life in America is all rainbows. Many LGBTQ youths still face homelessness and are drawn to the false, cruel consolation of suicide. In redder parts of the country, school libraries are targeted for carrying LGBTQ literature. And middle America seems largely unreconciled to conceptions of gender that eventually involve surgery.