It’s awfully easy to rail against the bigotry of the past.

But for a few increasingly marginalized nutjobs, our society has reached a consensus on Jim Crow and the Trail of Tears at home, on the gas chambers and pass laws overseas. It boils down to “never again.”

That sounds good. We are a better people, a more advanced society, standing tall against racism, blind hatred, and the appalling mistakes of the past.

It feels pretty good, too. We tell ourselves that we would be the ones facing Bull Connor’s dogs, the ones hiding Anne Frank’s family, or offering our homes as a stop on the Underground Railroad, no matter the risk, no matter the cost. We hold Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks up as examples to our children, rightly seeing them and  the thousands who stood with them as the best of us, as the architects of a better, freer America.

What we forget, what is so easy to forget, was how hard it was to stand up for those rights when it mattered most, how hard won was each step in the road. I’m not talking about the beatings, the threats of jail or of murder in the dark or the bombed out churches, at least not solely. Those threats were real, and bloody, and constant, but I’m thinking here of more subtle threats; being ostracized by neighbors, the rude comment in the grocery store. It takes a huge amount of courage to stand up to a pervasive injustice, one seen by many as not only moral and right, but necessary, and say, “this is wrong.”

We need another dose of that courage.

The state Legislature recently approved a bill opening marriage to same-gender couples in New Jersey. It’s about time.

Gov. Christie has promised a veto. He should change his mind.

Disappointingly, the two local Democrats in the Assembly, Nelson Albano and Matt Milam, were the only two Democrats to vote against the measure, and Sen. Jeff Van Drew was one of two Democratic ‘no’s’ in the Senate.

Arguments about the sanctity of marriage or the historic place of Biblical values in America ring false. So does suggesting the issue was resolved by allowing civil partnerships, so reminiscent of the failed system of separate but equal, which of course was not equal, just separate.

The state has no business defining what your relationship can be, or with whom you are allowed to share your life. Domestic partnership rules were a step forward, but if we believe in freedom, we must act on that belief and treat everyone equally under the law.

There has been progress made, over time. Once, just being homosexual could mean prison, or an asylum. A teacher who was out of the closet was likely to be out of a job, and gays were kept from serving their country, or coaching a team, or adopting a child, or, well, the list goes on and on. Even now, some gay kids are ferociously bullied, some to the point of suicide, and too often, gays and lesbians have faced assault or even homicide.

Haile Selasie – quoted by Bob Marley – said there would be war until the color of a man’s skin was of no more consequence than the color of his eyes. King envisioned a future in which people would be judged only on the content of their character.

This is the same fight, whether opponents of the alleged homosexual agenda want to see it that way or not – the ongoing work to build a society based on the assertion that everyone is equal under the law.

At some point, a person’s sexual orientation will be of no more interest to the state than their preference in any other personal matter. Someday, the rights of gays to be treated as equal members of society will be as much a foregone conclusion as the rights of women to vote, or for people of different races to marry.

When that day comes, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to say you were on the right side all along?