Progress

Yes, I read my alma mater's alumni magazine. And, every now and then, I encounter something that makes me proud. July's "Last Word" column was written by Timothy Haggerty, and it is a moving reflection on one person's academic relationship to the struggles in the LGBT community over the last two decades. From the column:

Greyer and older and now on the faculty, I am occasionally reminded that my first-year students were born at the same time I began researching sexual orientation and military service. According to recent polling data, approximately three-quarters of college students support gay marriage and an even higher proportion support gay and lesbian rights more generally. The final indicator of transformation might very well be irrelevance: my students readily discount assumptions regarding sexual orientation and judge their classmates by their characters. For me, it’s satisfying enough to think that these issues may soon become history.

As someone with a few friends in the LGBT community, do I think we're almost there? Not quite. I may be a progressive, but I can also be a pessimist sometimes. But, Haggerty reminds me that we're making progress.