Posted on 04/22/2009 4:45:48 PM PDT by SJackson
Bob Dylan's 1960s song "The Times They Are A-Changin' " was written at a time when blacks were insisting on equality, young people were rebelling against war and the status quo was being routinely challenged.
But it could have just as well been written today about another huge change in this country: the acceptance, particularly among the young, that gays should have equal rights, too.
Back then, Dylan's song came to symbolize the generational schism that gripped the country. One of the verses said it all:
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.
Indeed, the times as they relate to Americans' views of gay people are rapidly changing.
Who would have thought that the military, as recently as the early 1990s the bastion of anti-gay sentiment, would now be openly suggesting that perhaps it has been wrong?
Only a few weeks ago a Marine who served in Iraq wrote an op-ed for the New York Times pleading with President Obama to abolish the Bill Clinton-era "don't ask, don't tell" policy, which allows gays to serve in the military as long as they don't tell anyone they're gay.
Owen West pointed out that even retired Gen. Colin Powell and former Sen. Sam Nunn, the authors of "don't ask, don't tell," now both say the policy needs to be reviewed. As he noted, that's a polite way of saying they've changed their minds.
"So have many of us who wore the uniform in 1993 and supported a policy that forced some of our fellow troops to live a lie and rejected thousands who told the truth," West wrote, adding that a full 72 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan war vets were perfectly comfortable interacting with gays.
That astonishing turnabout by the military, though, pales compared to other recent events -- the unanimous decision by the Iowa Supreme Court that the state couldn't prevent gay marriage and the Vermont Legislature's action to override its governor's veto of a bill allowing gays to marry in that New England state.
What's so surprising is that the thumbs up for gay marriage didn't come from "liberal" states like California or New York, but from a heartland state supreme court not known for being liberal and a fiercely independent New England state that until the 1990s nearly always voted for Republicans, including against Franklin D. Roosevelt in each of his four presidential elections.
Here in Wisconsin less than three years ago, 59 percent of us voted to define marriage as being only between a man and a woman. In doing so we joined the vast majority of other states, which have succumbed to the culture wars promulgated primarily by the religious right and the politicians who hoped to benefit from the polarizing campaigns to marginalize gays.
Don't be surprised, though, if in the near future Wisconsin and other states decide to revisit that decision. More and more people -- another 10 percent of the population in just the past five years -- have come to understand that marriages should be between two people who love each other, and if they happen to be gay, that's no one's business but theirs. It's now estimated that 44 percent of Americans believe gays should be allowed to marry.
If the trend continues, it will be only a few years before a majority of the country comes to support marriage that includes gay couples. After all, churches that believe only men and women should marry can always refuse to marry gays, but states can -- and should -- recognize that gays can marry outside a church, just as heterosexuals have always been able to do.
For as Bob Dylan sang, the times they are a-changin' -- and for the better.
the backlash is comming,but it will get worse before it gets better
I have wondered if Obama’s policies and the whole stimulus package is and will in fact be God’s judgment on our culture’s acceptance of abortions, homosexuality and other unbiblical sexual behavior and general rejection of His moral absolutes. Perhaps the debt the next generation and the next and the next, etc., will have to be burdened with is itself the judgment for accepting a godless and pagan worldview.
I speak as someone who does not care what happens about gay marriage...he is a sickening little faggot, isn't he?
Well, he's accomplished his mission, a week ago, 90+ % of people didn't even know his made-up name, now a majority might well have heard of him. It's all about "look at me, look at me" with the flamers, isn't it?
When he mentions "revisiting" this decision, I believe he was referring to judges declaring it "unconstitutional" - about the only way the homo-fascists can prevail in most instances.
The problem is that when the backlash plays out, we only stop the advance - the ground gained by the enemy largely remains in their hands. Or if the homo-fascists retreat, they only retreat into a position which is still miles ahead of where they were 10 years ago. This ratchet effect isn't winning, it's static defense at best.
Winning would be democratically abolishing same-sex "marriage" in places where it is established as well as its close cousins: civil unions and domestic partnerships. Winning would be overturning Lawrence and allowing states to once again criminalize homosexual behavior according to prevailing cultural norms.
Times are changing for the better for homosexuals? They still account for about half of all the new cases of AIDS each year, accounted for 65% of the cases of syphilis in 2007, and have far higher suicide and drug and alcohol addiction rates.
*shrug*
Brimstone happens....:)
I reckon God’s keepin’ pretty straight on whose hand is in which pocket....:)
Sigh.
True.
And I hate to see anyone suffer regardless of how well earned.
Come all you young homos
Who want to get hitched,
And lesbians also,
Too long you have bitched;
You might as well suffer
like straight people do,
Get married and then
you can break up,
Yeah, you might want to try out
polygamy too,
For the crimes they are a-changin’.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.