In coming to an appreciation of the Mormon Church, one of the things that has been most compelling to me is the Mormon understanding of family, which extends beyond the general injunction to be fruitful and multiply, and addresses the permanence of love relationships into eternity, and embraces the sanctity of having children.

The absence of marriages will result in all kinds of financial burdens that gay people wouldn't face if they could get married. If my brother gets hit by a car tomorrow, my sister-in-law will go on living materially in the same way that she does now. If the same thing happens to me, a great deal of what I have will go off to the taxman. That's because of one of, as you doubtless know, eleven hundred federal laws that favor marriage.

Your gender identity is who you are. Sexual identity is who you bounce that off of.

Parenthood always involves recognizing your child as separate and different from you.

I look at the rates of suicide among gay teens. They are so, so high for suicide attempts and for completed suicides.

Life is enriched by difficulty; love is made more acute when it requires exertion.

That, in essence, is the catastrophe of suicide for those who survive: not only the loss of someone, but the loss of the chance to persuade that person to act differently, the loss of the chance to connect.