CHANGES

 I've lived a long time so I've, naturally, seen a lot of changes.  Changes don't phase me that much but the rate of change does.  Ideas come so quickly for an old fart like me.  The changes in our society come so slowly.  

When I was very young, I lived in an all-white, all-christian community and it wasn't that way by accident.  Sadly, there was nothing covert about it.  Blacks had been set free eighty (80) years before I was born.  As I grew up, those with darker skin were still trying to attain status and privileges that lighter-skinned people had.  I was twenty when a Civil Rights Act was passed by Congress to protect all individuals from descrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin.  Now I'm eighty and it still seems that the change is not complete.  How long should things take?  Laws don't do it.  They help, but don't make it so.  Only generations can make it work.  

Women received the right to vote in the U.S. in 1920 by the 19th amendment to our constistution.  That was 145 years after our country was established. When I was very young, my mother never worked.  Very few women worked ouitside the home.  World War II had pushed women into the factories and showed they could work. The House and Senate approved an Equal Rights amendment in 1971 and '72 that would guarantee women the same rights as men.  By our Constitution, three quarters of the states have to approve the amendment to make it law.  That has never happened!  We can't get 38 states to agree that women should have the same rights as men. OMG!  How slowly changes are made.  Laws don't do it.  They help but don't make it so.  Only generations can make it work.

In the last thirty years of my life, new causes have arisen; the rights of gays was out front.  They were joined by a myriad of other special cases (lesbians, gays, bi-sexuals, trans, queers, and more) - all seeking equal rights and equal protection.   Being impatient is normal but don't expect much to happen too quickly.  Laws don't do it.  They help but don't make it so.  Only generations can make it work.