(CNN) -- When a massive, muscle-bound American football player announced this weekend that he is gay, we watched yet another brick crumble in the monolith of American prejudice. To some, Michael Sam's words might have come as a shock, but most Americans know the country is in the midst of a fundamental social shift, one that conjures images of a different place. Where? Well, if you traveled from the United States to the Netherlands a few years ago, what you saw -- and smelled -- in the streets of ultra-liberal Amsterdam probably shocked you. Young people smoking joints in an open-air cafÃ©, gay couples holding hands on the streets and people of all ages not batting an eye about any of it gave U.S. visitors a novel and exotic experience.
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Frida Ghitis: The Netherlands once seemed permissive to U.S. on pot, same-sex marriage
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But changes in public opinion, laws have narrowed social gap in the two countries
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She says "family values" stance conflicted with libertarian notion of freedom
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Ghitis: U.S. differs with many nations on gun issue, but definition of freedom shifting
And the changes in @placeholder are echoes of a global trend.