Throughout the past 150 plus years or so the push for equality has made some frontiers disappear one by one. When Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves it started a snowball effect that emancipated those restrained by prejudice and human bondage.
When suffragettes were lobbying for the vote the male of the species scoffed at such an idea. Never underestimate the power of the female because not only did they get the vote they are on the precipice of ruling the world taking the power away from their now emasculated male counterparts. I never liked Gloria Steinem but one has to admire what she stood for and although she was ostracized at first she has made equality commonplace for women. Some of the tradeoffs for equality have had some deleterious affects for some women and as the old adage goes: be careful what you wish for.
People of color have had many renaissances since Mister Lincoln changed the map for them. Jackie Robinson more than just a baseball player started the financial revolution for minorities and even though prejudice fought them every inch of the way we have a sitting African American in the White House fulfilling Martin Luther Kings dream speech beyond even his wildest hallucination.
Gays and lesbian men and women also suffered violence of the highest magnitude. But even after the period of brutality they endured ended they still had to bear the brunt of a deep-seated prejudice and for many years withstood their own version of second-class citizenship. Now that has changed and same sex relationships are accepted without much fanfare and the once outrageous thought of same sex marriage is now favored in this country by a whopping 53%. A thought that was most unthinkable even in the late 20th Century. The sitting President has changed his mind on this subject also. Some said it was a flip-flop. I think it was more like evolution.
Even on the world stage in 1947 the State of Israel was formed and the phrase: Let my people go fulfilled a dream of nearly 3,500 years ago. Now the idea of a Palestinian state doesn’t seem a wild-eyed notion anymore. But who is next?
There is a group we will start to hear more and more about. Those people both men and women who are devoted to a practice called Polyamory. They believe in the idea that some relationships can include more than one sexual partner. How can this be? Not an easy lifestyle to even cogitate but some doctrines of Polyamory are spiritual in nature. There’s no such thing as clandestine affairs in Polyamory because all partners know in advance who might be sleeping with who (if that is included in the arrangement) and as a result there might be a tad less divorces to add to the statistics. Even though Polyamory doesn’t eliminate divorce or jealousy it goes a long way in making full disclosure part of every human relationship contract. The Forbidden Frontier, one by one they disappear until as we as a species live without prejudice.
