The Quiet Gay Revolution

As gays have moved into the mainstream, Republicans have landed on the wrong side of history

Brian Stauffer for TIME

When William F. Buckley Jr. revived American conservatism by founding National Review in 1955, he said the magazine's job was to stand "athwart history, yelling stop." At that time, history did seem to be moving in the wrong direction if you were a conservative, and Buckley was gutsy to admit as much. Later, during the Reagan era and after, conservatives enjoyed thinking that history was on their side. They saw themselves as riding it like a bronco, yelling not stop but faster! faster!

That's not how they look now. On no issue is history moving faster than on "gay rights"--an already...

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