And Generations to Go...

Yesterday, Chris and I saw a guy wearing a t-shirt depicting a boy holding a confederate flag and pissing on the NAACP. I could only shake my head in disbelief and wonder how long it will be before intolerance is no longer fashionable. 152 years after the end of the US Civil War, 110 years after the Supreme Court ruled that "separate but equal" was okay, and 52 years after the Supreme Court then decided that "separate but equal" was fundamentally flawed, open racism and bigotry are still considered "cool" in some circles. I wonder when we'll have the first openly queer Supreme Court justice. Thurgood Marshall was the first black Supreme Court justice in 1967, fully 102 years after slavery was officially abolished. If Stonewall can be used as a milestone analagous to the end of the US Civil War, then we're looking at circa 2071 before we have a gay Supreme Court justice. Assuming a generation is about 30 years, it seems we have many generations to go before intolerance is history and acceptance is the fashionable norm. We can hope that humanity as a species is getting smarter, and that the free flow of information will help speed things along. Side note: As I was thinking about this, it occurred to me that some people take offense at "equating" the fight for gay rights with the fight for black equality. Most of the offense I have heard is based on religious arguments and quotes from the Bible. These same people likely have forgotten that slavery itself was defended on religious grounds with quotes from the same Bible. The biggest difference I've seen between the fight for gay rights and the fight for black rights is that gay people can pretend to be straight and therefore blend in, while black people can't pretend to be white. Other than that, there are more similarities than differences.