EDITORIAL: Times are changing
A new Gallup poll finds 58 percent of Americans favor marijuana legalization. It is the latest sign that the United States is progressing on social issues at a pace not seen in decades.
On issues ranging from same-sex marriage to women's rights, Americans have shown over the past several years that they are clamoring for a more equitable, fair and tolerant society, and the most diverse generation this country has ever had – ours – is pushing the nation in that direction.
It wasn't so long ago that widespread support on several social issues was unimaginable. For instance, just 40 percent of Americans backed same-sex marriage as recently as 2009, with 57 percent of the country opposed, according to Gallup.
Those numbers have essentially been flipped upside-down, with 54 percent of Americans in support and 43 percent opposed as of July.
On the issue of marijuana, it was just in 2006 when only 36 percent of voters supported legalization, with 60 percent opposed.
For further evidence of the United States' social progressivism in recent years, one only needs to look at our politics.
President George W. Bush won the election twice in 2000 and 2004 largely on his socially conservative stances, winning over enough swing voters because of his positions on gay marriage and abortion that he was able to secure two narrow victories.
In 2008, when President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party swept into power, even most liberal candidates, including Obama, avoided tackling social issues. That was especially true of same-sex marriage, which was viewed by campaigns as too divisive and unpopular of an issue to campaign on.
By 2012, that all changed. Obama became the first president to voice his support for same-sex marriage, and it became a major tenant of his party's platform. Voters in Colorado and Washington legalized marijuana, and the U.S. Justice Department, usually unrelenting in its pursuit against marijuana use, has largely let those states be. The Affordable Care Act, despite its embarrassingly shaky rollout, is set to make access to contraceptives and birth control the easiest it ever has been.
All of that would have been unthinkable even just five years ago. But it's happening, in large part thanks to the activism of many in our generation, where support on issues such as those are the highest among any age group.
Our generation is often written off as a lazy, self-obsessed group who doesn't give a damn about current affairs. One look at the momentous social change this country has experienced in recent years, though, would prove those critics wrong. In just a few short years, we, as a group, have altered the nation's outlook on so many issues – and we're just getting started.
It's often said that change is slow, and it's true. Same-sex marriage won't be legalized nationally for quite some time still, and marijuana won't be, either. But significant progress has been made in the states and in the polls.
Thanks to our generation, America is becoming a more tolerant, just and fair society, as it should.
