Getting our rights quickly

I recently heard a speaker connect Tolstoy with Gandhi, who is connected to Martin Luther King, who is connected to Nelson Mandela (there were a couple more links along the way). As part of his story he remarked that the campaign for women to get the right to vote took 70 years. He said that it looked like the campaign for rights for sexual minorities will take a lot less time. Afterward I reminded him that we've been at this campaign for 50 years already. We're now marking the 50th anniversary of some of the earliest gay rights demonstrations. And the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) has been before Congress in some form or another for 40 years, only getting approval in the Senate last November. And John Boehner vows it will never come up for a vote in the House while he is its leader. Even so, I think it is likely we'll finish the job in less than 20 years.