For today's teenagers, homosexuality has never been a taboo topic.

They've grown up with positive gay characters on MTV's the Real World, and on network shows like Will and Grace. Many have "gay-straight alliances" at their high schools. And it's a safe bet that they know someone who's gay. All of which helps explain why for many young people, their reaction to today's debates over gay rights issues from marriage to antisodomy laws is simply: What's the big deal?

In fact, the biggest divide over gay rights in America today may not be along political parties or religious factions, but among generations.

In a recent Gallup poll, 72 percent of those aged 18-29 agreed homosexual relations should be legal, compared with 39 percent of those aged 65 and older. Most Americans don't believe same-sex couples should be able to marry, yet 59 percent of incoming college freshmen support same-sex marriage, according to the latest survey by the Higher Education Research Institute.

It's a trend that disturbs some Americans, reassures others, and leaves a large number of families split on an issue that's as sensitive as abortion.

"There's an increasing sense among young people that they don't get it - why do their parents and grandparents disapprove of this?" says Gilbert Herdt, professor of sexuality and anthropology at San Francisco State University and director of the National Sexuality Resource Center.

But young people's openness is something many of their parents and grandparents find hard to understand. Marriage, for them, will always be between a man and a woman.

On the more general matter of homosexual relations, opinion has been shifting among older as well as younger generations: The latest Gallup poll found that six in 10 Americans agree gay sex should be legal (up from a low of 32 percent in 1986), and that 88 percent oppose discrimination against homosexuals.

The shift has been paralleled by the increasing exposure of homosexuality in popular culture. In the 1990s, Dr. Herdt notes, media celebrities like Oprah Winfrey began having same-sex couples and gay parents on TV, highlighting the normalcy of gay life. The AIDS epidemic was bringing more gays out of the closet. And homosexuality was batted about the airwaves during the gays-in-the-military debate in 1993. "It was no longer about shame, silence, and fear, as it was for my parents," says Herdt.

These days, certainly, gay rights is about anything but silence. The recent Supreme Court case affirming the legality of same-sex relations is the biggest case in point. But every week seems to bring a new development: gay marriage in Canada; Wal-Mart adopting a nondiscrimination policy; a gay reality TV show to air on Bravo.

In this light, many see the Supreme Court's reversal of its 1986 decision upholding anti-sodomy laws as a symbol of how dramatically public opinion has changed.

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