Why are gay people on tv suddenly making headlines again?

Every now and then, an article will pop up about how there is one or more homosexuals in a new movie or series and then they go on and on about how brave and important this is as if no homosexuals have ever appeared on tv before. This makes me wonder what decade I woke up in that morning. 20 years ago, no one would give a shit either way, because it was considered perfectly normal, but now it's suddenly news worthy again? What happened? Is the world moving backwards?