McGurn's Commencement Address

It's been rightly praised here where I found it. This passage struck me:

First, who you marry is far more important than what career you choose. Over the course of a life that has taken me across three continents, I have met many accomplished men and women. And I have always been astonished by the number who give more thought to choosing the job they may hold for a couple of years than to choosing the spouse to whom they will pledge – before God and their friends – to remain with until death they do part.

I wonder if McGurn even thought for a second that for maybe 3 percent of his audience, "who you marry" is an illegal question. In Kansas, where he was speaking, three out of a hundred of the graduates he was addressing are barred from ever marrying the person they love by state constitutional amendment. And McGurn supported a president who wanted to make their potential marriages illegal not just in Kansas but in all fifty states in perpetuity as a matter of the federal constitution.

Actually, I don't wonder. I don't think such a thing even occurred to McGurn when he said it. Gay people are as invisible to him as they are to the president he served, a president who is supposed to serve all the people but couldn't ever address a gay group or acknowledge gay people's existence - unless explicitly asked - for almost eight years of his presidency.

But imagine if it meant you; that you are barred by law and by the state constitution from ever marrying the person you love. "Who you marry is far more important than what career you choose." How would that otherwise admirable piece of advice make you feel?