Right now, the political world is in the middle of the Buttigieg Boomlet. Everyone in the media (and even some voters) is going nuts for South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg. He’s a 37-year-old Harvard-educated Afghanistan war veteran who speaks about half a dozen languages and, like almost every Democrat in the United States, is running for president. And if Mayor Pete were to win the Democratic nomination, he’d be the first openly gay major-party presidential candidate.

A couple of decades ago, Buttigieg’s sexuality probably would have been a deal-breaker. But polling data suggests that American opinions on LGBT issues have shifted dramatically over the past couple of decades, and those shifts have created real room for a gay candidate. Buttigieg would undoubtedly face hurdles if he were to win the nomination, but Democrats could pick candidates with more serious deficits.

It’s hard to overstate how quickly Americans have collectively changed their mind on LGBT issues. Over the past couple of decades, both Democrats and Republicans have become much more likely to say that sexual relations between adults of the same gender are “not wrong at all” and much less likely to say “always wrong.” Opinions have changed on marriage equality, too — both through generational replacement and persuasion. Younger voters are more likely to favor same-sex marriage than older voters are, but older generations also seem to have moved left on the issue over time. Read more via Washington Post