{"id":22305,"date":"2017-06-11T02:25:52","date_gmt":"2017-06-11T02:25:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=22305"},"modified":"2020-02-01T22:14:16","modified_gmt":"2020-02-01T22:14:16","slug":"whod-ever-thought-wed-reach-this-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=22305","title":{"rendered":"Who’d ever thought we’d reach this point?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

WASHINGTON —\u00a0<\/strong>I’ve witnessed plenty in my lifetime: an erupting volcano, a Ku Klux Klan rally, returning to where I served in a time of war.<\/p>\n

I was able to knock another experience off my list of things I thought I’d never see: I got to watch a gay pride extravaganza in the nation’s capital.<\/p>\n

My first — and most profound — takeaway was this: An event such as what we saw could not have been possible a generation ago. It speaks to the changes in attitude, culture, social mores that have swept across the country.<\/p>\n

I was told the gay pride activities were “tame” compared to how they used to be. Every one of the thousands of people I saw along the many streets we walked was fully clothed. I saw plenty of rainbow colors. People’s hair was dyed in the colors of “Gay Pride.” They were festooned in rainbow-colored clothing. They were lugging signs, selling trinkets of assorted value.<\/p>\n

I saw lots of smiles on a gorgeous day under a bright late spring sun.<\/p>\n

Who in the world could have foreseen events such this a generation ago, perhaps even a decade ago?<\/p>\n

I guess we can thank the U.S. Supreme Court for delivering millions of Americans from a form of purgatory when it ruled that under the 14th Amendment’s “equal protection clause” that gay marriage is therefore legal in all 50 states of this great nation.<\/p>\n

But here’s another aspect of what I heard about the gay pride activities taking place in this most political place in America: Corporate and, yes, church <\/em>endorsement helped make it mainstream. Think about that for just a moment. Gay pride events no longer are the sole province of radicals and extremists intending to shake up “the establishment.” The establishment has signed on.<\/p>\n

So the parade took place. The capital was alive with celebration along block after block around the corridors of political power. I was there to witness it.<\/p>\n

It was cool.<\/p>\n\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON —\u00a0I’ve witnessed plenty in my lifetime: an erupting volcano, a Ku Klux Klan rally, returning to where I served in a time of war. I was able to knock another experience off my list of things I thought I’d never see: I got to watch a gay pride extravaganza in the nation’s capital. My … Continue reading Who’d ever thought we’d reach this point?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[29,1863,7134,2923,5053],"class_list":["post-22305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","tag-14th-amendment","tag-gay-marriage","tag-gay-pride","tag-marriage-equality","tag-us-supreme-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22305"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41024,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22305\/revisions\/41024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}