A neighbor and friend sent me this email earlier today about the marriage equality debate that her youngest son—Gus, age five—got into at school today:

The kids were discussing whether boys can marry boys and girls can marry girls. The kids were saying that they can't. Gus said, "Boys can marry boys. Dan and Terry are married."

That email reminded me of this Michael Kinsley piece in Time back in 2007...

Kids grow up today with gay friends, gay parents, gay parents of friends and gay friends of parents. If only blacks and whites were as thoroughly mixed together in society as gays and straights are. Kids are also exposed constantly to an entertainment culture in which gays are not merely accepted but in some ways dominant. You rarely see a reality show without a gay cast member, while Rosie O'Donnell is a coveted free agent and Ellen DeGeneres is America's sweetheart. The notion that gays must be segregated out of the military for the sake of our national security must strike Americans younger than, say, 40 as simply weird, just as we of the previous generation find the rules of racial segregation weird. (O.K., run that by me again: they needed separate drinking fountains because ... why?)

Kinsley was writing about gays in the military, obviously, but his point applies to marriage equality. For Gus—for all the kids in our orbit—Terry and I are gay parents of a friend and gay friends of his parents. Gus thinks that boys can marry boys because to him DJ's parents' relationship is indistinguishable from that of his own parents—right down to the rings on our fingers. His parents are married, DJ's parents are married. When Gus inevitably learns that there are people out there who will applaud wildly when, say, a state legislature votes to prevent boys form marrying boys, Gus will think that's weird. Gus will find the whole notion that marriage must be protected from gays weird. (O.K., run that by me again: DJ's parents can't be married because... why?) But Gus is a little unclear on one aspect of marriage equality...

When asked if girls could marry girls, Gus said, "Nope. They can't marry."