Anime, you ignorant slut.
A few things.
One, I find the entire argument of "acceptance of LGBT in America leads to cultural genocide of Queer life" interesting and kindda funny. Not funny because it's wrong (it isn't) or it isn't tragic (it is) but because it's the result of something fantastic and inevitable from the beginning. Cultural heritages die out. At least in the sense of a "living culture." They die out, get subsumed, get replaced, etc. World without end. This is not to diminish what Queer Culture accomplished in it's all too short lifespan, including new ideas on gender and sexuality and historical whitewashing. But Queer Culture was a direct result of persecution. Not in spite of it. Like most great movements, it is a nightshade, it only thrived in the shadow of oppression. Those in this culture yearn to understand themselves, find definitions for things left ignored and share that understanding with the world, prove they are just another aspect of human existence. Well, it worked. The Western culture agrees. Queer Culture has been brought out into the light of day. Like all nightshade it will now shrivel and desiccate. The Beatles put Motown out of business in one night and it looks like acceptance will put overall Queer Culture out of business in one generation. The one right behind us. And its wonderful!
Overly, flippant? Probably. But I never expect Doctor Who to have to apologize for fighting evil and I will never apologize for celebrating the fact that acceptance of LGBT people has grown by leaps and bounds. The vanguard, who fought and struggled and sacrificed everything for the rights those after them enjoy, are heroes. No doubt. But they also inevitably become the ones who look at the younger generations, enjoying/accepting the right to live alongside the former "oppressors," and call them sell-outs. It's the life cycle of causes.
Two, I find the argument of "gentrification" or "assimilation" or whatever can be boiled down to a simple "our socialization is better than your socialization!" Both seem to me a form of corralling people into particular lifestyles. I get that one is a vast majority and the other is a tiny minority but the control seems just as strong in either group. The Queer impulse to be, well, "queer," I think can be just as constricting and just as suffocating as the yearning to emulate my parents and just put a ring on it. When "normal" is the enemy, by attempting to destroy orthodoxy you just created your own to replace it. So I've never found that complaint to be especially interesting.
Three, you hit on this but not nearly to the level it deserved. Marriage equality is just another option we give those who come after us. It is not a judgement or an edict or a demand. Just an option! And like all options in the marketplace of idea (CPAC 2014, hollah!), it gets chosen based on it's merit. Accept it or not. Those who wish to fight for more marriage options like polyandry or whatever are free to fight that battle but, aside from all the larger implications of equality and acceptance and justice and symbolism of said ideas, we rarely fail in giving younger generations more options. In fact, we generally fail when we leave them with too few options.
And finally, the real engine driving this churn is as obvious to me as it appears to be unfathomable to the Queer vanguard: parents. I don't think I am incorrect or out of line to say that most who lived at the height of Queer Culture were not close to their parents, if not outright disowned. Another tragic wrong has been righted. Millennials are being accepted by their parents/family en masse. Not to say that far too many children aren't still being abandoned by their parents/monsters but I would stand to believe that the ratio is almost entirely flipped now and will be approaching zero by the time our generation becomes parents. Thank god. And, as I hinted at earlier, anyone who thinks they can override the biological imperative of parents passing on their hopes and dreams and neurosis to their children, is fooling themselves. Perhaps it was easier to ignore/hate/rebel against parents who showed you nothing but scorn/hate/shame. But kids come out now and get hugs (I was one of those{!}). How do you tell them that they need to throw off the trappings of a home where they grew up happy?
So this final section becomes not a discussion of how/if heteronormative trends can/should continue. I could argue historical precedents or non-precedents, et al. Instead I will just close with the hard truth that whatever this trend is, it will not be stopped. For the simple, fucking-amazing reason that LGBT children are growing up in happy homes with proud straight parents. A lot of them. Hopefully, one day, almost all of them. I honestly believe that even after being subsumed into that vast normal majority, they will grow up liking Broadway plays or football plays or Legos or Barbies or tractor trucks or Bravo reality shows, all based on factors that are still out of the control of any person or cultural theory. If they look around and decide that this 2.5 kids, dog, married life ain't so bad, well, at least now they have the choice which Queer Culture now regrets giving them.
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