Most of you know that I tend to stay on theme here at Dr Dick’s Sex Advice.  I don’t often venture off into other areas of interest, unless they directly impact on our main focus of this site — human sexuality.

I will make an exception today, however.  Today is an historic day for America.  Those of you who know me, know that, despite loving my country, I am not always proud of her (us).  Today I am both in love and oh so proud.

Yesterday, despite the enormous odds against it, we, the citizens of this great nation, did a miraculous thing.  Yesterday, we accomplished what I believe to be the moral equivalent of landing a man on the moon.  Yesterday we landed a man of color in the White House.

When I was a boy, both of these endeavors seemed improbable if not downright impossible. Extricating ourselves from vestiges of slavery and institutionalized racism seemed as unlikely as freeing ourselves from earth’s gravitational pull and visiting another world.

As it turned out, the laws of nature were considerably less difficult to overcome (like by 50 years) than to prevail over our ingrained prejudices.  Funny that!

While I have no illusions that the events of the last 24 hours eliminated the need to always appeal to our better angles, there is no doubt that there has been a fundamental shift in the way we Americans think about ourselves and our nation.

Just like the flight to the moon didn’t mean we had conquered space; the election of Barack Obama doesn’t mean we’ve purged our society of all its ugliness.  But in each case, we’ve made giant steps in the right direction.  So hurray for us!