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This chapter argues that the attainment of marriage equality will not push it in a starkly different trajectory. It discusses several different factors that limit the movement’s ability to change directions in significant ways, including its diversity and fragmentation; its organizational emphasis on professional advocacy over grassroots participation; and its identity-based civil rights orientation. Within those restraints, the chapter predicts that the movement, post-marriage equality, will seek to increase LGBT representation among elected and other government officials and placing greater emphasis on LGBT rights issues in other countries. It also argues that the movement would benefit from moving beyond issues of civil rights, and the policing of nondiscrimination obligations, in order to focus more explicitly on efforts to engage and educate institutions of civil society, such as corporations and schools, on the need to adopt policies that make LGBT individuals feel safe, secure, and respected as equals.

This chapter explores some of the challenges in implementing marriage equality, including resistance from some government officials; the enactment of religious-based exemptions allowing public officials and private individuals to refuse to facilitate marriages by same-sex couples; and the absence of legal antidiscrimination protections for sexual minorities and transgender individuals in most states. The chapter also discusses the possibility that the attainment of the marriage equality objective may leave progressives feeling less inclined to expend money and energy on LGBT issues. In addition, the chapter urges those in the movement to pay greater attention to the challenges and complexities raised by both HIV/AIDS and transgender issues. Finally, the chapter envisions the American LGBT rights movement becoming more engaged with questions of international human rights and the treatment of sexual minorities in developing nations.

This chapter explains that there is some evidence that LGBT activism in Canada post-marriage equality has declined, especially in the ability of movement groups to mobilize grassroots activism on a large scale. But it cautions that factors other than the attainment of nationwide marriage rights in 2005 likely contributed to the decline. These factors include the difficulty of sustaining volunteer-based groups over long periods of time, the diffuse character of the Canadian LGBT movement, and the increasing proportion of LGBT advocacy taking place in largely-disconnected institutional settings (such as government departments, major political parties, and the courts). It also explains that movement groups, since the attainment of marriage equality, have paid increased attention to other issues such as the need for greater inclusivity for sexual and gender identity minorities in schools. It also finds that sexual minority communities historically on the movement’s margins, such as transgender people and LGBT members of the large diasporic communities in Canada’s major cities, are increasingly finding ways to be heard. Finally, the chapter explains that the post-marriage movement is grappling with competing rights claims on sexual and religious grounds while paying greater attention to the challenges facing sexual minorities in other regions of the world.