THE EXPANSION OF EQUAL RIGHTS

	It is an indelible part of the history of these United States that
over time an ever greater number of citizens have come to enjoy their
Constitutionally guaranteed rights & freedoms more equally.  It has been
nothing short of an ongoing national project.  The truth of this statement
is easily illustrated by drawing a small circle labeled "White Male
Landowners." In 1776, at the founding of the Republic, this was the extent
of the voting population, & it was therefore America's first power base.
Not long after, the rights of non-landowning EuroAmerican males were
recognized (draw a larger circle around the first).  After the Civil War,
AfricanAmericans began their journey of recognition, punctuated by the
Civil Rights Movement (another, larger circle).  In the 1920's, female
Americans were legally able to vote, a right obsensibly granted to them by
the rest of the voting population (yet another circle).  And in between
each of these examples were many other groups who gradually won various
rights embuing them with the right to be free from legal & societal
disapproval, harassment, & even imprisonment. 
	I submit that this expansion of equal rights among Americans is
both a strength of this country & an inevitable result of the American
character.  As a nation we were born with the passion of freedom &
revealed early on a tenacious willingness to protect & honor the
individual as a worthy entity, so much so that we took the historically
unusual step of making the individual superior to the government, at least
on paper, stating that the power of the government sprang directly from
the will of those people. 
	If you question the inevitable continuation of this process, first
consider where we would be if it were not so.  African-Americans could
still be owned as slaves (or, more likely, would have violently revolted
by now), women would still be little better than the property of males (or
would have similarly revolted), and other groups, most of "minority"
status, would still be left out of the American legal power stucture, much
to the impoverishment of the country as a whole.  
	Yet, as each of these groups was achieving rights equal to the
original power group (the EuroAmerican male landowner), there were many
people who resisted, sometimes activly & even violently, their empowerment
& inclusion.  One of the reasons for the Civil War was racial equality. 
Many women suffered during the Sufferage Movement.  The pattern has been
repeated over & over:  a group will work for its rights, meet individual,
social, & institutional resistance, then with time & effort, succeed in
its struggle. 
	It's easy, I think, to look back at previous examples & sympathize
with the oppressed or powerless group.  As I said, it's deeply ingrained
in the American character to believe in rights & freedom.  It is not
always so easy, though, to recognize the futility of repeating this
difficult & unecessarily turbulent pattern in the present.  Take, for
instance, the flap over gay & lesbian rights.  All sorts of reasons are
given why this sub-group of Americans should not be given equal rights
with the rest of Americans, the right not to be discriminated against, to
form marriage contracts, to express their sexual choices.  Indeed, reasons
were given by reasonable, rational people why AfricanAmericans & women
should not have equal rights.  But the reasons were faulty & the rights
were eventually equalized.  In the same way, arguments against gay &
lesbian rights are faulty & will almost certainly fail in the end.  It
must be so if the American experiment, the most amazing & noble in the
world today, is to succeed. 
	As a member of several minority groups, among them Paganism,
Nudism, & the bisexual communities, I can look back at the triumphs of
this uniquely American passion for expanding equal rights for all citizens
with optimism, even while I am disappointed that the process must run it's
usual course, that people must suffer who have done nothing wrong, that
the government & society of America still discriminates against members of
itself, that there are those who stand in opposition to the inevitable &
positive change that spells the continued growth & maturation of freedom.    
	But I believe it will happen & that America will move even closer
to its own bright promise.