Last weekend, on my personal blog, I wrote briefly about Rosa Parks, as Dec. 1 marked the anniversary of her legendary stance for equal rights. She once said that she "would like to be known as a person who is concerned about freedom and equality and justice and prosperity for all people."
How times change. No doubt in many a history class, the youth of today find what Rosa Parks and other people were subjected to and went through in order to secure a citizenship of equal value to be quite incredible and perhaps even unimaginable.
Of course, the youth of tomorrow will read of today. The youth of tomorrow will consider it incredible that matters relating to gender and sexual orientation were once cause for divide. They will read of notions that the existence and validity of feelings of attraction and feelings of love were once considered limited. They will read of a misunderstanding where such feelings were once thought to reserve themselves to a particular gender mix, governed by operative conditions grounded exclusively in heterosexuality. "Nonsense!" the youth will say. They'll know better. They'll know the truth.
The future is bright. Education will continue to pervade society. It will continue to change hearts and minds. A full understanding is coming about, particularly in the context of sexual orientation, that heterosexuality is a part of diversity, not a yardstick by which to measure diversity against. It is a sexual orientation that shares equal status and equal validity with all sexual orientations. And all sexual orientations share the same valid existence under the unifying umbrella of diversity. Diversity is variety, and diversity encompasses all varieties.
All relationships and all sexual orientations are equally valid. The perceived validity of some is currently unfairly compromised by unequal legal recognition, or the complete lack thereof. Any elevated status associated with heterosexuality is something that exists in law, not in fact. The restriction in marriage laws is perpetuating a misconception that heterosexuality is some kind of benchmark, a misconception that is now duly waning with the growing implementation of equality in marriage laws and by right, causing heterosexuality to be reconsidered in the light of its equal status among diversity, not apart from it.
A reality of justice, fairness and equal opportunity for all people, an authenticity synonymous with a prosperous society, is simply a matter of time, and indeed how times change.