It's not like the society made a great strides in how we imagine Santa Clause when Coca Cola pushed the current vision of him. Or it was not a great stride when people started talking about personal carbon footprint promoted by BP to draw away the blame from corporations.
It might be just a coincidence that LGBT rights issue rose to prominence right after Occupy Wallstreet was squashed with nearly military force. Or it might not be.
These arew for racism, but similar hockeysticks with the exact same timing exist for other social justice topics. Media, as one, started harping on identity politics and never let their foot off the gas.
Occupy gets sunk.
201x: Rainbow floats sponsored by J.P. Morgan, Angela Davis talks sponsored by Shell Corp.
These are, yes, examples of cultural belief changing slowly and happening less because people changed their minds and more because younger people came to a new conclusion. I’m curious what you meant about it maybe being a counter-example, what did you mean there?
Older people may be in government/business power, but one could argue that LGBT rights rose because those people aged out of the majority/worker culture group. Even if the age group in power is old and possibly even disagrees with the view, placating the masses must be done one way or the other, and codifying LGBT rights is an absurdly cheap way to do so, considering the other political topics.