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>>I think smoking is the best example here. One of our kids was, maybe, 10 when I spent most of a Phillies in the infirmary with him because someone smoking near us had triggered an asthma attack. It's now been more than a decade since smoking was permitted in the ballpark, and most of the time, we don't even think about it. We were in the Poconos last week and went to have lunch at a place that TripAdvisor recommended. Got there and found signs on the door saying that it allowed smoking (turned out to be a bar with food), so we went elsewhere.
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>We are in agreement here (as my wife and I are members of the pink lung society). It became obvious over 10 years ago to most restaurant owners that stronger smoking laws would likely help business and not hurt it.

Yep, I was commenting on that when we walked away from that bar. Many restaurant owners were "sky if falling" about the no smoking laws, but all the studies I've seen indicate restaurants do better without smoking.

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>>I actually attitudes toward homosexuality are in the same rapid change category. Once enough people started coming out as gay that most people turned out to know someone, most people's views changed almost overnight. A few months' back, I read "Then Comes Marriage" about the Windsor case that overturned a key portion of the "Defense of Marriage" Act, written by the principal lawyer for Edie Windsor. The stories in the book about Windsor's life as a gay woman coming of age after the war, and the lawyer's as a gay woman in the 70's and 80's were fascinating. I'm so glad it's better for most gay Americans today.
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>Here's where I see it differently. I have never had a problem with gay marriage my entire life (then again, I was a libertarian prodigy at age 5). I am slightly suspicious about people who have "evolved their positions" on homosexuality. Yes, I realize that honest people can and do change their minds. But I also know that there are people who change their minds for reasons that are expedient/political.

Here, I suspect that the few years age difference between us may matter. Until, say, 25 or 30 years ago, for most people, the only gay people they (thought) they knew of were flamboyant celebrities because those were the only ones who could be out without enormous risk to life and livelihood. So most people didn't see gay rights as an issue that affected themselves or their families. As more ordinary Americans came out as gay, more people understood that this wasn't about a so-called lifestyle, but about the fundamentals of people's lives.

A couple of examples. In my last year of HS and first year of college (1973-1975), I taught Hebrew School as part of a small faculty of perhaps 10 people. Years later, I learned that 2 of the 10 were gay. If they'd been out then, I doubt they could have had those jobs. Today, except among the Orthodox, a non-issue.

Coming well forward of that, one of my sons had a music teacher in middle school (late 90's) who we knew was gay. But even though it was an open secret, I remember him being fairly uncomfortable when one of the school secretaries (who was an "other mother" to him) joked about it at a school event. He was concerned that it might cost him his job. While it probably wouldn't have done so in this district then and certainly wouldn't today, it is still legal in PA to refuse to hire someone or to fire them because of their sexuality.

On the marriage issues, I think there are a lot of folks of my generation (me included) who absolutely supported civil unions, but took a while to see that, in fact, a pale substitute for marriage wasn't sufficient. That said, I will never forget the look on my dear young friend's face as she said at the end of her wedding celebration "I'm truly married in the eyes of the state of Pennsylvania." Less than two weeks later, thanks to Obergefell, she was truly married in the eyes of all 50 states (Roy Moore and his brethren in Alabama notwithstanding).

Tamar