So, it actually happened....

I thought it would, but I couldn't let myself think that in case it didn't happen.

Part of my father's creed--"never hope for too much because you'll most often be disappointed."

I swear he taught me that! I forgive him, but it was an awful lesson to learn, though often true.

My father was a class A pragmatist.

But it actually happened, by a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court made gay marriage the law of the land. I always thought Justice Kennedy would be the vote that mattered and made the difference. And he did just that. I had hoped Chief Justice Roberts would have considered his legacy more than his conservative credentials and made it 6-3. But he didn't, and I understand why.

It was a case of judicial activism--making the Constitution say what it should instead of what it does. Like the Warren Court in the 60's, jumping ahead of the society and setting the course for the future.

Lots of folks won't agree. The decision will divide us more than unite us as a people, a nation.

But it was 'right', just as Brown vs. The Board of Education and Row vs. Wade leaped ahead and brought us to where we need to be.

It was when the 'closet' disappeared that turned it all around. People suddenly realized their friends, their families, people they cared about were gay...and that made all the difference.

I pray the remarkable, healing and wondrous reaction to the massacre in Charleston, South Carolina, will change the conversation about race in the same way as gay/lesbians coming out of the closet did for that conversation.

No violence or breaking of the law in any way after 9 people were slaughtered for being inclusive and welcoming. The Confederate flag coming down in Mississippi and off license plates in Virginia. Real movement about a hateful symbol that had be shrouded in 'heritage'. Maybe a path of peace and reconciliation now that wasn't possible in Ferguson and Baltimore.

Something to pray for, at least.

Just as I thought our country was slipping back into Regan-esq ways of being, the Supreme Court has given me hope. And Hope is good, no matter what my father thought.