Our Founding Fathers fought for American independence and wrote an enduring framework for freedom that remains an evolving work in progress some 239 years later.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
That wonderful and probably best-known sentence of the Declaration of Independence, ratified on July 4, 1776, has been a great foundation for this strong and ever-changing nation. But most of the change - in both the nation and our Constitution - has come just in the past 95 years.
In 1920, the ratification of the 19th Amendment gave women a right to vote. Equal pay laws, equal credit laws and other gender equality measures followed, but women are still waiting for the reality of equal pay. Now the nation's average disparity is that women make 77 cents for every $1 earned by men.
Some 188 years after the Declaration was penned, Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law just two days before the country's July 4th holiday. And a year later, he and his congressional allies passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Just in recent days, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that health care access is a right, and another high court decision this week affirmed that gays have the same right to marry as all other Americans.
We've seen setbacks, too. In recent years, Congress and the Supreme Court have nibbled away at some of the gains. The court in 2013 gutted the Voting Rights Act, and many Republican-controlled states have been systematically passing laws aimed at making women and blacks jump through ridiculous hoops to vote.
Also in 2013, some states, especially Southern ones, worked to systematically pass "TRAP" legislation - Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers. The Roe v. Wade case and subsequent Supreme Court decisions prevented states from banning abortion outright, but state legislation can and has made it harder for a woman to be completely in control of her own reproductive rights.
Last November, Tennessee voters approved an amendment to the state constitution that paved the way for still stricter abortion regulations. A legal challenge has been filed about the way the votes were counted, but the General Assembly wasted no time in passing a new law requiring mandatory counseling for women seeking abortions and a 48-hour waiting period between the counseling session and the abortion. Another new law requires all clinics performing 50 or more surgical abortions a year to be licensed as ambulatory surgical treatment centers. These centers must comply with more onerous standards for the physical building, operations and reporting than doctors' offices.
Clearly, we still have lots of work to do in this wonderful and free democracy we call America.
We can do it. We always have.
Happy birthday, America.