Earliest time for a gay president?

[Verily]

2024.  All it would take is our generation coming into the dominant voting bloc, and that will happen within twenty years.

I agree with Don on this. 2024 may be a bit early, but not too early. The age gap on homosexuality is enormous--and not surprising. The youngest voters today grew up essentially being familiar with homosexuality. Often with some vicious common stereotypes thrown in, but generally speaking portrayed neutrally. Whereas the oldest generation grew up when homosexuality was still illegal and considered a mental illness.

Does that make a difference; of course, it makes an enormous difference. Support for gay marriage, a good barometer, is around 65% among those 18-29, but below 30% among those 65+. By, say, 2029, the vast majority of those 65+ will be deceased, while another twenty years of new voters with support for gay marriage equal or greater to that of the 18-25 group will enter the voting pool.

The traditional view is that people get more conservative as they get older. This is a hopeless generalization and usually supported, not by tracking individual generations, but by looking at a snapshot and observing that older voters are more conservative. The abortion issue is a good counter to this. The least supportive of abortion group is the 30-44 age group. Those also happen to be the ones who came of age during Reagan's presidency or immediately prior or thereafter. The most supportive group varies, but is most often the 45-64 age group--who came of age during the rise of the feminist movement and the handing down of Roe v Wade.

Generations' social views are largely shaped by their environment in their pre-voting and early voting years, not by rabid liberalism in youth and radical conservatism in senescence, although, given the rate at which society changes, they may appear radically conservative by the time they reach age 65. Abortion is a good barometer for these sorts of things because overall views on the issue have remained very steady for decades; overall views on homosexuality have not.

[Verily]

There should be some way to calculate this. The first openly gay state legislators were elected in the 1970s, but they were few and far between. It took until this decade to get more than a handful, but interestingly, in the last few years we've elected out representatives all over the country, including the most conservative states. It's almost always in liberal districts.

1998, I think, was the first election in which an openly gay person was elected to an open seat in Congress. It took ten years, 2008, for a follow-up. Both were in relatively liberal districts, a caveat I have to include because Tammy Baldwin, amazingly, succeeded a Republican. CO-2 is pretty damn liberal.

We seem far from electing an openly gay senator or governor. It could happen within the next 10 years, but I wouldn't put better than even money on it. Running statewide is a high hurdle. We don't even have people elected to low-visibility executive offices yet, as we've had with African Americans in the South for a while. I don't know who could do it as a viable candidate. Now is the time to identify these future senators and governors. Jarrett Barrios had an opportunity in Massachusetts, but he got stopped for other reasons at Middlesex County D.A. and retired from politics. Christine Quinn? Tough to move from N.Y. city office to Albany. Someone in California?

A future President can't be discussed until we've gotten some people elected statewide. To me, 2024 sounds too early. After all, women senators lagged far behind majority acceptance of equality in the workplace, and a woman president lags far behind that. So I would expect a gay president to also lag behind equality in the workplace and socially, and even that is a ways off in many parts of the country.

To make this long story short, there are too many intermediate steps we have yet to reach before we can contemplate an openly gay President. Generational turnover in the electorate is only a small part of it.

All true. Although I do point to Cicciline as a very likely elected gay governor in 2010. Rhode Island may not count as a state for this purpose, however

[Verily]

I think a problem with being a homosexual Republican is that you have to win in the GOP primaries where you'd encounter the evangelical activists.  Granted, the Democratic minorities might not be hot for you

I agree I think it also has to be a woman.  People are a lot more comfortable with lesbians  than they are with penis-to-male-butt sodomy.

I don't know if would be better or worse for this person to have a partner.

To those saying 2012 - who would run?  In 2008 we elected America's first openly gay Congressman to a freshman term (different than those who come out after being elected). 

Gay male. Tammy Baldwin was out when she was elected.