Larry King Now host Larry King
this week asked author Malcolm Gladwell to explain the relatively
quick acceptance of LGBT rights.
“Things change so quickly now,”
King said. “For example, it took blacks forever, and they're still
working on getting equal treatment, but gay marriage is the law. And
that seems swift. How did that happen so fast?”
“The gay marriage story is an
incredibly unusual one, 'cause you would have thought of all of the
social issues facing America, that would be one that we would wrestle
with as long as abortion. Right?” Gladwell replied. “But it
turns out no. It sort of went away and we're still fighting about
abortion.”
“I think maybe it's a couple of
things. One is that gays and lesbians wanting to join the rest of
society. Right?”
“And that at the end of the day is
good [news]. People finally woke up to say, 'Wait a minute. That's
a fantastic thing; a beautiful thing.' So, maybe that's the
difference. It seemed like it's a really threatening, challenging
issue. And then people thought about it for about five minutes and
they realized, 'Actually no, it's very life affirming.'”
Gladwell, 53, is best known for writing
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking and The
Tipping Point. According to Wikipedia, combined the books had
sold more than 4.5 million copies as of 2008.