For all the reputation of the Victorian era as some age of libertine hypocrisy where homosexuality was rife, the establishment was not slow to curb to this. The Labouchere Amendment of 1885 made homosexuality easier to prosecute where sodomy could not be proven (and Labouchere was a Liberal MP). On the other hand it was the men of the so-called "Greatest Generation" who wrote the Wolfenden Report in 1957 to decriminalise homosexuality and then had this late Victorian legislation was repealed.
Thus, far from Victorian liberalism paving for some era of degeneracy, the Victorian establishment strengthened the traditional norms. But after WWII, after a series of high profile prosecutions of famous and established sodomites, the British establishment lost its nerve and decided to repeal the law against it. I think a lot of this also has to do with the shift in the meaning of "hypocrisy" as, not referring merely to actors posturers of moral superiority for the sake of public approval or praise, but as someone who merely fails to live up to their own professed ideals. This shift in the meaning of the term will have momentous consequences for our nerve at holding to high and difficult moral standards, and sap our ability to advocate for them while we fail to meet them.
Hur hur, we discovered that an era or people don't practice the standards or norms they preached, "hypocrites"! WHAT is so hypocritical about that? Oh wow, prescriptions aren't descriptions, GENIUS! Brilliant observation! Especially when upon discovery of such degeneracy they STRENGTHENED the laws against it? Rather than the "Greatest Generation" just lying down and giving up.
I will NEVER stop shilling against this perversion of the word "hypocrisy", and I will flogging this horse until every flesh is stripped from the horse, and then continue whipping the bones of the dead horse.
And speaking of the Wolfenden Report, while the Boomers may be a horrible narcissistic generation, to large extent they didn't have a choice. They inherited the spiritual exhaustion of the so-called "Greatest Generation" who lost the heart and will to contend for the faith, and ultimately sanity itself.
The UK government Wolfenden Report which recommended decriminalising homosexuality was published in 1957, before a single boomer had a high school diploma. The blame for the fall of Western civilisation should not be placed on those who merely inherited the rot of their fathers, it should be placed firmly and squarely upon those who had a choice, and who chose poorly. It was the so-called "Greatest Generation", and not the Boomers, who triggered the downfall of Western Civilisation.