I’m not gay. I know barely one iota about what it’s like to be gay. But I’ve heard bits and pieces. And some of those bits say, it’s not so easy growing up gay. The word is that 14-year-old kids throw insults your mother would slap you for. They say things that make other kids cry in bathrooms. And in the very gymnasiums of my own past, I’ve seen straight-A students, star athletes, and class officers hurl all manner of physical, verbal, and emotional abuse at a certain kind of kid. A gay kid.

I’m not gay, but I realize that it’s a hard trip down the timeline for many kids, teens, and adults. And I think it’s fair to say that trip’s rougher than most of us had to endure in the very same playgrounds and schools.

I’m not gay, but I have seen the kind of flak that regular, law-abiding people have had to endure simply because of a stranger’s opinion of what’s absolutely none of their business. And that’s why it makes me very disappointed when I see my countrymen stomping on people just because of how they love other people. Not children, not animals. People.

And so you see, it embarrasses me when my American sisters and brothers are so superstitious that they’d theorize about what two strangers might do if they tie the knot. They hypothesize, infer, and assume things when they don’t even know a single gay person themselves. To me, that’s lazy. That’s yell from the couch lazy, my fellow Americans.

So, it makes me wonder, is all this really about marriage? Or is it about love? And if marriage isn’t about love, then what is IT about? Kids? Tax breaks? Property rights? Protection under the law? If marriage is that bureaucratic, it seems that by law, we can’t discriminate.

And if it’s something more, then may be we could feel a little shame, my fellow. Americans.