I'm fairly good friends with a 69 year old retired gay man who's a historian, former professor,author, and all round smart guy. I never was much for history until I met him and he explained it to me. He makes a real good illustration of how if you want to understand what the future may hold you have to understand the paths of events from the past to the present.
I've asked him about the same question.
For gay issues in the USA he predicts the worst is yet to come. Scary? Crazy? Impossible? That's what I thought too when he said it. Then he explained.
Abortion became legal in the US in 1973. Violence directed at abortion clinics and doctors didn't start until 20 years later. All the violence was done by religious fundamentalists who were less organized in the past than they are now. Once they have gotten totally frustrated trying to manipulate the courts and elected representatives to push their religious agendas on gays they will begin bombings, killings and probably worse. Then. like has happened with abortion, politicians will start giving in and letting them have their way with all sorts of bizarre laws to make it harder to be gay and "equal."
the gay rights thing is interesting...I read an article about how the public opinion towards LGBT is improving all over the world, except for countries like Russia and Belarus where it's going backwards. I'd be interested to see if the world leaders in this issue in the future will be the very countries that are now oppressing it (see how Germany soon became one of the most liberal countries going after the war)