“Wanna write a piece on gay marriage?” my editor asked me.

I bit my tongue before replying: “Sure, what’s involved?”

“Basically, I know nothing about it,” he said.

I cringed.

What’s to know? Marriage is … well, marriage. It’s the union of two people who love each other enough to commit their lives to being together. Perks include hospital-visitation rights and all sorts of fun tax breaks. (Therein lies the reason “marriage” is so important. The whole notion that marriage is a religious institution and that homosexuals should be content with civil unions is rubbish. Rightly or wrongly, marriage is very much an act of government.)

The phrase “gay marriage” has always irked me. We don’t call the union of a man and woman “straight marriage.” And imagine the outrage if we called the union of a black man and white woman “mixed marriage”? Why, then, does the union of two men or two women get a qualifier?

* * * * *

I grew up in a loving home with two politically conservative parents, both practicing Roman Catholics, both medical professionals in New York City at the height of the AIDS crisis.  To them, homosexuality wasn’t just a sin, it was a de facto death sentence.

Even though I knew my parents would always love me, I wasn’t confident they’d ever accept me. In a way, I’m glad I lived with that fear for part of my life. It helped me to understand how people like my editor, who I’ve been friends with for years and know is as far from homophobic as you can get, could draw a distinction in his mind between “marriage” and “gay marriage.”

I need only look at my parents for inspiration. They towed the line that homosexuality was against God’s law … until they had to come to terms with their son being gay. It took a long time – nearly a decade – but their views became more nuanced and, little by little, changed to a near-180.

Of course, not everyone has the “benefit” of having someone they love also be gay. I have nothing but understanding for people who still believe that being gay is a sin and that so-called “gay marriage” is wrong. How can they be expected to accept something they don’t understand? To them, being gay is unnatural. To them, people choose to be gay.  In their minds, therefore, “gay marriage” is invalid – a detour on America’s path to salvation.

Let’s examine both arguments, starting with the unnatural bit.

Fundamentalists love to quote Leviticus, in which homosexuality is famously called an abomination. Inconveniently for their arguments, Leviticus doesn’t stop there. Turns out eating shellfish – here’s looking at you, lobster! – also is an abomination: “But all in the seas or in the rivers that do not have fins and scales, all that move in the water or any living thing which is in the water, they are an abomination to you.” He continues, “You shall not eat their flesh, but you shall regard their carcasses as an abomination. Whatever in the water does not have fins or scales, that shall be an abomination to you.” Forget all of these “pray the gay away” clinics; America has a much bigger problem – a seemingly insatiable appetite for shrimp and lobster that are veritable one-way tickets to the eternal hellfires.

The argument goes that marriage is a religious institution. Putting aside the argument that God somehow approves of heterosexual relationships and doesn’t approve of homosexual relationships, marriage isn’t a religious institution. The church doesn’t grant marriage licenses; they’re granted by the state. So long as that is the case, no one can factually argue that marriage is anymore a government contract than it is a religious ceremony.

The other argument, that people choose to be gay, has always cracked me up. Who on earth would choose to be gay? Lest we apply logic to a philosophical argument, who on earth would choose to be any type of minority?

Some of the sadder arguments against gay marriage center on the elephant in the room: gay sex. Straight men don’t want to think about two men making love. (Two women, though? That’s hot!) Straight women don’t want to think about two men making love. Fact is, though, gay sex is happening all across America, even in states where gay marriage is constitutionally banned. Here’s the kicker: If gay marriage is approved at a federal level or in more states, and you’re heterosexual, your life won’t change. Not one bit. You already have gay neighbors and gay co-workers. (And yes, they’re already having gay sex.) The only difference would be they would be gay married. If gay marriage were legal across this country today, America’s moral core would be no more threatened today than it was yesterday. Why? Because, at the end of the day, “gay marriage” doesn’t actually do anything to anyone except legitimize relationships that are already happening.

* * * * *

I doubt this piece is what my editor envisioned when he asked for my perspective on gay marriage.

In my mind – the mind of a practicing Catholic who believes in and loves God, the mind of an ardent Republican, the mind of a man who is in love with another human being who happens to have a penis instead of a vagina – there’s no distinction between “marriage” and “gay marriage.”

In elementary school, I remember laughing out loud when my history teacher taught the class about segregation. Separate bathrooms for black people and white people? Who could imagine something so utterly ludicrous? I genuinely thought my teacher was joking.

My future husband and I eventually want to start a family. It is my hope that, one day, history teachers will talk about a time when society differentiated between “marriage” and “gay marriage.” When that happens, I hope our children laugh out loud.