When the Wheel's Aren't Turning

I was born in the mid 60's, grew up mostly in the 70's, and moved into adult hood in the 80's.  Three decades full of momentous change that required people to get on the bus or be left behind.  I was too young at the time to remember the later civil rights marches and speeches, but I do remember the protests in the early 70's against the Vietnam war and seeing footage of mostly young people, protesting Vietnam. I lived in a "mixed family" of a former army brother and a hippy brother, who to this day, I think partially is still living in 1969.  Truth be told I was probably more tuned into planning my fall wedding than the future of world kind in the summer of 1987, I keenly can recall President Reagan's command to the Soviet Union, and all communist leaders, "Tear down this wall." 

I  think though that there is nothing unique in my personal history around change, that hasn't been going on for centuries and hundreds of generations before me.  My children will remember Iraq and Afghanistan and know through the 24-7 news machines that violent conflict is everywhere in the world.  They'll know the civil rights movements of the 60's still need to happen today, and that sometimes, even if you get everyone on the bus through elections and passing legislation, sometimes the wheels aren't turning.  

I feel that way about the recent Indiana legislation  Bear with me as I get a little political, but to me it is about human dignity. The bill basically says that the government cannot substantially impose upon a persons right to practice their religious beliefs, but extreme interpretation or real intent is not about freedom. The USA Today has a detailed, neutral assessment of the law, and the stance of those pro and con for the law.  USA today religious-freedom-law-Indiana
I believe everyone has a right to their own view point and opinion, and in their own home, practice those beliefs, speak those beliefs, and within the law, prohibit adversarial expressions of their beliefs.  I tell my kids regularly, "My house, my rules."  This law though, goes down a slippery slope in that it provides justification to discriminate against anyone perceived to defy their religious and moral beliefs in the course of regular societal life.  It not only has under current of anti gay and lesbian recourse, interpretation may allow out right discrimination now being legal. This is a bus I  don't even want to be on the same road with.