Celebrating progress

Great news.

Support for same-sex marriage in the United States has reached an all-time high of 70%, according to a poll released by Gallup last week.

The percentage — the highest since the organization began recording the trend in 1996 — marks a 10% increase since 2015, the same year the U.S. Supreme Court ruled all states must recognize same-sex marriages.

Also this week, Carl Nassib, defensive end for the Las Vegas Raiders, announced that he was gay, making him the first active NFL player to make such an announcement. Within 24 hours of his coming out, Nassib’s jersey had become the top-selling item across the league and the NFL had agreed to match Nassib’s $100,000 donation to The Trevor Project to support suicide prevention among LGBTQ youth.

The bigots of the world are slowly but surely being painted into a small, dark corner of the room, occupied primarily by ideological zealots, weak-minded fools, hate-filled monsters, and blind adherents to intolerant, religious doctrine.

Not exactly the best of company.

Never in my lifetime did I think 70% of Americans would approve of same-sex marriage.

I know it’s felt like we’ve taken a few steps back in recent years, so celebrating any and all progress is important.

We have a long way to go, but this is real progress.