What if the chief executive of the most valuable publicly traded corporation in the world came out as gay, and nobody cared?

Because that’s sort of what happened Thursday when Apple head Tim Cook announced in an essay published by Bloomberg Businessweek. The New York Times cared, or course, quickly publishing a story on the announcement. So did most major media outlets. And bloggers had plenty to say.

But normal folks? Not so much. Cook’s name was not truly trending by any measure I could find. It wasn’t a top-10 search on Yahoo or Google.

You can argue that the lack of hullabaloo suggests Cook should have come out earlier, when the move would have had more impact, but I won’t. I have no idea how it’s going to affect his life, his self-image, or his relationship with a beloved relative or friend. I choose to assume he came out at exactly the right time.

What I would argue is that while we can’t raise the “Mission Accomplished” banner (almost always a mistake, as any soldier who did five tours in Iraq will tell you) the public perception has come an extraordinarily long way in a shockingly short time.

And one of the biggest reasons corporate leaders stay in the closet, the fear that coming out will hurt the value of their company, doesn’t look like an issue either.

Apple was trading down just a few pennies Thursday afternoon, and that seemed more likely to be a normal fluctuation than a post-confession dip.

We’re not past sexual orientation bias, any more than we’re “post-racial.” We may never truly be either of those things.

But my Facebook feed is not clogging up with tributes to Cook (thankfully) or attacks on him (far more thankfully).

And that’s quiet but meaningful progress.

Lane Filler is a member of the Newsday editorial board.