This weekend, my family has been visiting with some dear friends to celebrate a birthday. They’re lesbians and last year were married in one of the states that recognize gay marriage. Recently, they successfully conceived through artificial insemination, and they’re expecting their first child next year. Deena and I think it’s great and have promised to pass on a bunch of baby clothes if it’s a boy.

They’re a wonderful couple. Considerate, caring, intelligent. They hold down full time jobs in DC, and they own a house. They’re full of all the same new-parent worries that Deena and I had while she was pregnant with our first child.

I wish the current batch of presidential candidates — particularly the Republicans — could have the same friends I do. I wish they would spend five minutes to watch Zach Wahls’s speech to Iowa legislators about his experience as the son of a gay couple.

Some of the rhetoric in opposition to gay marriage invokes children as the reason. They say children are better off with parents consisting of “one man, one woman.” I would like to ask them why they believe that is so. If the reason is founded in the inherent hostility such a child may face on account of his/her parents, then that is something we can change.

The gay people I know are just like me. They have the same goals and aspirations, and they deserve to be fulfilled in life, just as I do.

I wish my nation felt the same way.