The Secret To Real Change.

Change what people believe and legislation will follow.

The fight for women's sufferage was secured with majority support from men who could vote, something cynics who think political actors always vote to preserve their own political power would tell us was impossible.

No less a conservative than Ronald Reagan brought no fault divorce to California.

All but a handful of states across the nation, of all political stripes, have decriminalized adultery, cohabitation and consentual sodomy, long before the Lawrence decision in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Before he died Martin Luther King, Jr. was reluctant to raise the "social issue" because he thought it was a political threat to the larger civil rights movement. Before he left the Senate, Jesse Helms, who made his political career as a segregationist, was proclaiming the fundamental justice and rightness of interracial marriage.

Progressives used to favor alcohol prohibition. Most Christian churches used to cite the bible in support of slavery.

Attitudes about drunk driving and domestic violence have changed dramatically in my lifetime.

Last week was National Coming Out Day. And, coming out has been perhaps the most powerful means of changing public opinion in the entire gay rights movement, because the bravery of that act changes countless people's attitudes each time it happens.

Colorado has had an openly lesbian Speaker of the State House. Bit by bit attitudes change, and then it is just a matter of time.

For some people, the promised land doesn't come soon enough to be enjoyed. But, politics is something we do today, so the next generation can live in a better world.