From my TMV post reacting to a piece in the NYTimes answering the question Why the Gay Rights Movement Has No National Leader. It doesn't need one:
The single most important way the lgbt rights movement differs from the black and feminist movements is that lgbt people can choose to stay invisible.Once society wanted its lgbt citizens to stay invisible. Once the culture enforced invisibility on lgbt people. But so long as lgbt people were invisible, they could only be a hidden menace.
The choice to come out and declare one's sexual orientation as a cultural identity was a prerequisite to progress. That lgbt people have made so much progress is a tribute to each and every individual who made that declaration to their family, friends and professional community.
Today the culture no longer wants its lesbian and gay citizens to be invisible. LGBT characters on television and in the movies, in politics and community life, along with those who are our friends, neighbors and colleagues, are clear evidence of this.
The culture, in this instance, is ahead of the courts. It is the foes of that cultural acceptance who have deftly used the courts and the law to hold old norms -- norms that are no longer culturally relevant -- in place.
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