Culture Watch

Rather than looking back--the time-honored way for magazines to mark a 30th anniversary--Judy Wieder, editor in chief of the Advocate, the national gay and lesbian newsmagazine, asked 30 prominent gays and lesbians to look ahead, to where homosexuals will be 30 years from now. A few predictions:

* Chastity Bono: “I’m sitting in the Oval Office with the first lesbian by my side and my grandson on my knee. I’m telling him about how, when I was young, I spent many years in the closet.”

* Martina Navratilova: “Gay men and lesbians will be able to marry legally,” though perhaps not yet in churches.

* Neuroscientist Simon LeVay: “We will be able to tell something about an embryo’s chances of becoming gay. And, very likely, to do something about it.” But by the time the technology is available, “few Americans will be interested in using it.”

* New Republic Senior Editor Andrew Sullivan: “Keep your eye on the churches . . . as surely as gay men and women have sustained the churches for centuries, in clerical garb and out of it, they will be a part of the churches’ future.”

* Newsweek writer David Ansen: “You will be presented with a choice of seeing a gay or straight edition of your summer blockbuster movie. In option B, the Keanu Reeves of the future doesn’t ride into the sunset with Sandra Bullock but with Leonardo DiCaprio.”

Wieder, the magazine’s first woman editor in chief, predicts that in 30 years, “People will not be frightened of other people because they’re gay or lesbian . . . all the meanness and damage will stop.” In coming years, she says, the magazine will be tackling such issues as legitimization of gay marriages, gays in the military and same-sex sexual harassment.