This is probably gonna be a tough one to win. The winds are not yet completely at our backs on this one, I don't think. HOWEVER, I think this could eventually go toward more liberalization. My husband and I were just talking about this and I read the article to him and he thinks it may happen within our lifetimes. He's in his early 60s and I'm in my late 50s.
I do think, though, that there's a gradual mellowing we are going to see as our kids' generation starts to mature and then take over. Our two kids are in their early 20s. And my husband and I were just talking about how - we don't know ANYBODY their age who has a hangup about gays, for example. I said I thought that while this marijuana prohibition might not start loosening soon, I thought the first serious change and improvement in ridiculous attitudes and positions and policies would be toward gays. And I do. I think as our kids' generation ages, the prejudice against gays is gonna start melting away. Seriously, they in that age group just do not understand what all the fuss is about, here. Neither of us knows anybody their age who thinks gays are something terrible or that gays are going to Hell or something.
It's because they all know gay people. They know gay peers, fellow students, elders, neighbors, friends, acquaintances, and relatives of all of the above. It's no big deal to them. Every one of them, and everyone else we know in our own age groups - knows at least one person who came out, either a friend or relative or somebody else in their general orbit. As our 23-year-old daughter likes to say in a dry, bored, mildly-annoyed tone of voice - "no one cares." The same, I think, holds true with mixed-race families and mixed-culture families. Immigration too. Eventually, more open-mindedness starts to out-number the closed-mindedness as the older generation, set in its ways and reluctant to change, starts to die off.
I don't know how soon the stringent marijuana restrictions will relax along with other attitudes and obsolete taboos. But then again, I can't think of anybody in that younger-age pool I just described above who doesn't smoke it at least occasionally, either. Perhaps it's inevitable, too? Eventually? Maybe?
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