By Mike Matejka

With the Fourth of July close, I thought, “What makes us a great nation?”  There are many answers, but one that jumped to mind was flexibility.

A few years ago, a young friend in the Czech Republic asked me to send him the U.S. Constitution.  After I sent it, his response back was, “Where is the rest of it?”   He was comparing it to the European Union constitution, which is 480 pages long.  If we were to write a constitution today, it probably would be as long also.

However, one reason our Constitution has survived is that is written simply and creates flexibility.  Now the slave-holding founding fathers probably could never conceive of slaves’ descendants voting, let alone gays marrying, but our system is flexible enough to allow those ideas to come forward.  We grow, we change, we adapt.  We have a basic framework of equality before the law.    Our basic premise of equal justice and opportunities for all to participate means we are not a stagnant people, but a changing and evolving nation.

In light of last week’s Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage, let’s go back 25 years ago.  Gay marriage was a fringe idea.  Even amongst many gays and lesbians, equal treatment was seen as a more attainable goal.  However, gay marriage became a movement; some states passed referendums against it, other states allowed.  It became a central issue for our time, a marker of acceptance for gay and lesbian Americans.  I’m sure some people find this idea uncomfortable, some abhorrent.  Yet just like inter-racial marriage, we will adapt and we will grow in the process.

Think about change in our own community.  Just look at our local restaurant scene.  25 years ago Chinese food meant only the Grand Café downtown.   There was a single Mexican restaurant in Normal.   Today we have multiple restaurants with an Asian theme, from Chinese to Japanese, Thai to Indian.  There are no shortages of Mexican restaurants.  Over 25 years, Bloomington-Normal has changed, and we’ve come to enjoy that diversity and choice when we go out to dine.

So celebrate the fourth, whether you skin is pale, dark or brown, your gender is male, female or in transition, whether you are a hetero, bi or a homosexual.   This is a great country because through the centuries, we have learned to accept new ideas and new peoples.  Happy Fourth of July.

Mike Matejka is the Governmental Affairs director for the Great Plains Laborers District Council, covering 11,000 union Laborers in northern Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota. He lives in Bloomington with his wife and daughter and their two dogs. He served on the Bloomington City Council for 18 years, is a past president of the McLean County Historical Society and Vice-President of the Illinois Labor History Society.

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