"Time May Change Me, But I Can't Trace Time"

It is amazing to look at the scope of the changes that occurred in the last century. We began the 1900s with our feet firmly planted on the ground and ended these years establishing a permanent presence in space. The Earth’s 1.6 billion people living in 1901 did not have a national highway system, the Internet or cell phones. By the year 2000, the Earth’s 6.1 billion inhabitants took all of these for granted.

With these technological changes, or perhaps because of them, great societal changes also took place. While an American woman at the beginning of the century did not have the right to vote, by the end one had appeared on the ticket of the Democratic party. While the ultimate glass ceiling had not yet been breached, at least cracks had started to appear.

Not all change is good. The weapons and methods of war became more effective. Soldiers went from using guns and hand-to-hand combat to using poisonous gas, tanks and airplanes. We then learned how to split the atom and used this knowledge for war. Eventually we had the ability to build systems with the capability of annihilating the human race.

War and the military also helped to bring great societal change. The structured environment of the military was fertile proving ground for the mixing of races, which then spilled into general society. With men off fighting the Second World War, women got their first toehold into the workplace.

When I entered this world during the last third of the 20th century, the combination of technology and war had proved to be a combustible accelerant to change. For the first time war could be brought to the evening news in real time and a large portion of Americans were uncomfortable with what they saw. And if the government could not be trusted to wage war, then everything was on the table. The rules of sex, abortion, birth control, moral standards, women’s rights and civil rights were all up for debate.

The lifecycle of technology also seemed to decrease significantly. Eight tracks were replaced by cassettes, which were replaced by CDs. When I was younger, my visual entertainment was limited to “Thirteen channels of sh--- on the T.V. to choose from.” We thought it was amazing when cable came to our neighborhood and we had two rows of channel selections on a wired remote. VCR’s actually let us select what movies we wanted to watch and allowed us to record TV shows so that we were not confined to the networks’ schedules. These were replaced by DVDs and TivO before the century ended. My first computer plugged into the TV and had 8K of memory.

Thankfully, Y2k fears were unfounded and technology did not come crashing down at the turn of the century. Instead, the pace of advancement seemed to accelerate even more. The iPod allowed me to put my entire CD collection in my pocket. Blu Ray players improve the fidelity of video. My cable company lets me which TV shows and movies I want to watch on my demand. The phone in my other pocket is almost as powerful as the five year old computer that sits on my desk.

The pace of societal change within this century may be best represented by the advances in gay rights. However, before one can achieve equality within society, they need to stay out of jail and up until 2003 there were still states where engaging in sodomy could get one locked up. One did not even have to be a homosexual. In fact, until 1971, even a married couple engaging in oral sex could be prosecuted. In 1986 the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of these laws.

In 1998 John Lawrence and Tyron Garner were the victims of a false police report when sheriff’s deputies entered Lawrence’s apartment and found them engaged in a sexual act that met the definition of Texas’ “Homosexual Conduct” law. A gay rights organization saw this as an opportunity to contest the Supreme Court’s previous decision and took the case. The appeals process ended at the Supreme Court in 2003 when the court struck down the Texas statute. This ruling also served to invalidate the sodomy laws of the 13 states that still had these laws on their books.

The movement turned to the military, which banned homosexuality from its ranks. The first step came in 1993 when Clinton took the first step by instituting ”Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” as the new policy. Since this policy did not allow gays to openly serve, it was not perfect, but it did prohibit discrimination against closeted individuals. Obama took the final step of clearing the end of the policy in 2011.

Clinton also is responsible for a setback in the march forward since he signed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) after it passed with wide majorities in both houses of Congress. This law set up a firewall that limited the recognition of same sex marriages to the states in which they were performed. It also limited access to any benefits that married couples enjoyed on a federal level. The Supreme Court is currently deciding the constitutionality of this law.

Unfortunately, change is sometimes slow to work itself at the individual level. After the oral arguments in the Lawrence v. Texas case, Senator and future Presidential Candidate Rick Santorum had this to say about the case:

“We have laws in states, like the one at the Supreme Court right now, that has sodomy laws and they were there for a purpose.... And if the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything.... It all comes from, I would argue, this right to privacy that doesn't exist in my opinion in the United States Constitution, this right that was created...in Griswold...”

In online comments about the oral arguments in the United States v. Windsor case challenging DOMA, one commenter had this to say:

“If marriage is a right then where does the right stop? Can polygamists and incests (sic) demand the same right? Can people that love animal (sic) also claim the right? Gays claim that love is involved but then again animal lovers and all the above love too. Where does the right end and how doe (sic) this not open up a can of worms?”

Fortunately, these are the viewpoints of a diminishing minority. A constantly changing world should make them irrelevant.