I say that a bit tongue-in-cheek but it definitely helps to have gay culture and gay icons just out there in the world, melded seamlessly with the rest of society. This includes things like trashy teen comedies and musicals and what not.
Having equal marriage rights is just one more step in the right direction of having a more tolerant, loving earth society.
On one hand I agree, but it's never been sufficient. There have been gay icons for a long time (probably forever); Oscar Wilde springs to mind, and Alan Turing (though I don't know if he was well-known to the public). And even with their status, they were still persecuted and ruined.
When we watch a show, we think of the characters as people. It helps eliminate the problem of people who don't think they know any gay people. Maybe you don't have a cousin or uncle who's gay, but that guy in Glee was gay, and he seemed okay right? Icons don't trivialize things in the same way, because by their nature they're viewed as different.
It's not really the gay icons as much as it is the gay banality. Having gay just exist in plain sight.
On the other hand, I recently saw a survey of Americans that tried to determine how their personal relationships with gay people affected their views of gay marriage. IIRC, around 30% responded they didn't know anyone who is gay. That said it all! (EDIT: I should be clear: My point is that there is no way 30% don't know a gay person; I doubt that's true of 1%. They are just in denial.)
I've been thinking of having contrived mechanisms exist, basically "meet a gay person" info booths.
EDIT: I did not mean to cause a trainwreck below this comment. It was the quickest way on mobile to communicate "all big problems are tackled one task at a time".
(guys, it's a joke)
The irony is that in India right now we are using a very old colonial British India law to put gay people in jail.
Each person, whatever their sex is, should have the right to work at a place if they are as qualified as other candidates.
If there's a lady who wants to land a job at Child Care Center, and - let's say a Black transgender gay communist - they should have exactly the same chances. But these horrible sexist mothers will allow only other women, preferable white, to take care of their kids! Males stand almost no chances, not to mention race minorities, not to mention sex minorities.
This is a true middle-ages dramatic situation of these gays. And again - I'm talking on the individual level. Even if only one gay out of the population of 20% gay in the US currently wants to have a job at a Child Care Center he should have exactly same chances as a single white straigt woman.
Wouldn't you agree? I hope you are not a xenophobic racist homophob because that what you are if you give preference to some white woman working at a Child Care to Black Transgender Gay (fe)male.
Isn't this a gender discrimination problem, not a sexual orientation problem?
Unfortunately it's still legal in many states to discriminate against employees on the basis of sexual orientation. Hopefully that's next to be fixed.