I returned home from a cruise around the British Isles to several hours of no electricity from my notoriously erratic neighborhood circuit. After two weeks in temperatures ranging from the 50s to 70s, it was a sweaty homecoming.
I was happy to be flying American Airlines yesterday and not Delta, though a bird mishap caused an hour delay of the final DFW-LIT leg for work on the American Eagle plane. (Delta has canceled more flights today because of ongoing computer problems.)
I have plenty of thoughts on return this morning, but not much news at this moment. Arkansas hasn’t taken a turn toward the progressive in the last couple of weeks (Republican disregard for pre-K education most notable among the bad news), that’s for sure. So I welcomed this news from the Associated Press on new national polling. It found overwhelming support among people aged 18-30 for equal rights for LGBT people, whether in employment, health care or adoption. This includes transgender issues.
Because the Arkansas legislature contains precious few members in that demographic, I think we can continue to predict continued support for legal discrimination against LGBT people in Arkansas, from the governor on down. But there’s hope for a future day when the inexorable time-life continuum grinds on and supplants obstacles to equal rights with people with different outlooks.
The article notes:
While young Americans favored LGBT rights on every issue in the poll, only 6 percent, including fewer than 1 in 10 across racial and ethnic backgrounds, consider the LGBT rights one of the top issues facing the country.
That’s understandable. But you can understand that those personally affected might have a higher degree of interest in stamping out government-sanctioned discrimination, currently the law in Arkansas. The further underlying good news is the correlation between open-mindedness on sexual orientation issues to progressive thought in many other areas of political contention.