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Same-sex marriage is legal in almost 16 states and gays can serve openly in the military, but a business can still fire someone over their sexual orientation.
That's almost exactly the opposite of what the gay-rights movement thought would happen two decades ago.
Even as activists have made major progress in changing public opinion and advancing their goals through Congress, state legislatures and the courts, a bill to ban discrimination by employers remains just out of reach.
The Employment Non-Discrimination Act passed the Senate last week on a bipartisan vote, with 10 Republicans joining all Democrats, but it is unlikely to get very far in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives.
Supporters say that has created a glaring contradiction in how gays and lesbians are treated by the government.
"There is definitely a synapse connection problem," said Fred Sainz, vice president of communications and marketing at the gay-rights advocacy group Human Rights Campaign.
The irony is that ENDA, as the anti-discrimination bill is often called, was long thought by supporters to be an easier goal than same-sex marriage or allowing gays to serve openly in the military.
Activists have different explanations for why it has stalled.
Felipe Sousa-Rodriguez, co-director of the gay-rights group GetEQUAL, said one problem is that polls show many Americans think that a law protecting gays and lesbians at work is already on the books.
"I don't know any other issue in this country that had this broad kind of acceptance," he said. "It shouldn't be controversial, but D.C. makes it controversial."
Grassroots support is critical for a social movement, he said, and the gay-rights movement is just beginning to grow roots.
Many trace the gay-rights movement back to the infamous Stonewall riots, which occurred after police raided a gay bar in New York City in 1969. But activists say that public support came about more recently as more and more people came out of the closet.
Today, nine out of every 10 Americans say they have gay acquaintances. A little more than half of Americans support federal benefits for gays and want to see same-sex marriage legalized for the whole country, according to March and July Gallup polls.
Even still, organizers haven't quite figured out how to harness that support into legislative action.
"I don't know that we've hit yet that secret formula that will result in enduring legal protections," Sainz said.
That's because the federal government is about a decade behind American culture — another reason ENDA hasn't become law, said Ian Thompson, a legislative representative for the American Civil Liberties Union, who urged patience among supporters.
"Particularly when you're dealing with civil rights laws, these do not happen overnight," he said.
But Sousa-Rodriguez of GetEQUAL, an organization that is often critical of mainstream gay-rights advocacy strategies, said advocates are just as behind the times as the government is when it comes to arguing for equality.
He said the movement's supporters have made too many compromises on gay-rights legislation and focused their efforts on state issues when they should have been lobbying for broad equality at the federal level.
"We are still working on the '90s politics as if we're still in the '90s," he said.
He pointed to the past two years' push to legalize same-sex marriage in almost 16 states as an example, saying the movement failed to protect vulnerable members of the gay community, such as those who live in southern states that have constitutional bans on same-sex marriage.
"We're not demanding for what we deserve, we're demanding what we think we can get as a movement," he said.
Despite all that, the movement is heading into 2014 with some stunning victories.
It started with a 2011 repeal of the military's ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military, continued into 2012 with voters in two states legalizing marriage at the ballot box, and capped off this June with a Supreme Court ruling that repealed a federal law limiting same-sex rights and a California ban on same-sex marriage.
In addition, Hawaii is on the verge of becoming the 16th state to legalize same-sex marriage this year.
All this prompts Sainz to call 2013 "the year of the gays."
"We have made more progress in just one year than we have in the 43 years combined," he said.
But gay-rights supporters say their fight is only halfway finished. The movement needs what Sainz called aspirational laws, such as affirmative action for gays, to replace the discriminatory laws that have been repealed or revised.
"This is just kind of like the beginning of the civil rights puzzle," he said.
Another challenge comes when repealing discriminatory practices opens the door to new problems, such as how the military's acceptance toward gays, lesbians and bisexuals serving openly excludes the transgendered and doesn't address same-sex spouses living in states that don't recognize gay marriage.
Activists say they also feel that they're just an election away from having some of these laws reversed.
"We still have enemies that would push back against us," said Lt. Col. John Gillespie, US Air Force Reserves, and co-chair of the gay-rights military watchdog OutServe-SLDN.
The next battleground in the fight for laws appears to be religious liberty. ENDA passed the Senate with broader exemptions for religious institutions than those written into the Civil Rights Act a half century ago. A companion bill introduced in the House would go even further.
But ENDA's religious exemptions don't go far enough, said Leanna Baumer, a senior legislative assistant with the conservative, Christian organization Family Research Council. Baumer said her organization would like to see every business owner able to express his or her religious views when hiring or firing, which would effectively void the bill.
"When we talk about discrimination, we also have to take into mind a new type of discrimination that targets individuals or businesses or enterprises for their faith and values," she said.
Baumer argued that ENDA is stalled in Congress because lawmakers know it's unnecessary.
"Voluntary actions and what we call market sources are already solving the problem where it might exist," she said.
But gay-rights advocates said they'll keep pushing for equality via Congress and the courts, supported by the knowledge that public opinion is on their side and that eventually government will come around.
Sainz even predicted government pass ENDA sooner rather than later, erasing at least one paradox in their fight.
"If I weren't optimistic, I wouldn't be working for the gay rights movement," he said.