For my gay friends: It won’t be long now

Almost thirty years ago, after gaining gay friends . . . and getting to know the stresses they undergo simply trying to navigate life as who they are . . . gay rights became a paramount issue for me.

I thought then, oh, if we’re lucky, maybe a few generations . . . . but look! The right to marry the one you love regardless of gender is breaking out.

It reminds me of when I was in Birmingham, Alabama, at an event celebrating white and black civil rights activists, people who’d walked arm in arm against segregation . . . those who’d been part of the 50s and 60s movement.

These original activists were well into their seniority by this time. To a person the black activists expressed awe at the distance they’d come and how much society had progressed since they were children.

It was a different world and they recognized it.

It takes your breath away how quickly change can come when the tipping point is reached. One day you wake up and the Soviet Union has disappeared — peacefully.

A societal change in consciousness appears impossible at first, then maddeningly slow . . . then inevitable. Then, in a short span of time, hard to believe it hadn’t always been that way.

How cool to be living through this — WOW —

One day soon we’ll wake up and Jason and Joshua will be able to marry anywhere in the U.S.

Kayla and Amber too!

And no one will think twice about it . . . except us who will be the old timers. We will remember when our friends who professed that kind of love dared not speak its name.

* * *

Thank you to Lynn Keller, who prompted this line of thought, referring to gay marriage rights being voted for the Senate in Hawaii:

“These [things] always make me tear up.

:::blink blink:::

We are living through a civil rights shift and witnessing a movement of personal human freedom.”

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