At a discouraging moment in the long brutal struggle to end Jim Crow, Martin Luther King, Jr. said in one of his most brilliant speeches, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it curves toward justice." On this day where all progressives mourn another close loss on whether gays and lesbians will have equal rights in this country, that speech gives me comfort not only because of it's eloquence but because history has shown it's truth. This country has seen a lot of terrible things in our history - slavery, Jim Crow, the horrendous treatment of Native Americans, the long term discrimination against women, the ill-treatment of immigrants - but we have also made incredible progress and overcome many setbacks.