I consider myself extremely lucky to have spent most of my childhood in an amazingly accepting and loving church environment.

Even so, many months and countless hours were spent in committee meetings and bending over the church charter, which expressly denied performing same-sex marriages. Eventually, the congregation decided the charter did not accurately reflect God’s love, and my community joined the ever-increasing number of churches that believe the idea of marriage in the church is not as limited as we used to think.

Marriage is a concept that has followed countless civilizations and cultures throughout time and is one of the few that will continue to go hand-in-hand with homo sapien culture as we expand on earth and into the heavens.

There are few things more beautiful than joining two individuals as one, to bring them together in union in love and before their god(s).

But for hundreds of years (some historians say around 800 in Caucasian Christian culture) we’ve repeatedly denied, legally and religiously, the holy matrimony of countless same-sex couples who express the same love for their other halves as different-sex couples.

So like my ancestors of old, I look around and ask, “Why?” Because there must be a reason why we’ve persecuted countless souls who only want to spend their lives with who they love.

I’ve yet to find an answer that satisfies me.

One I hear the most is, “it is against God’s word/law/will,” for these people to be together in any fashion.

But I was taught God created us in his image, all of our perfections and all of our flaws.

I was taught of a Son who said the greatest commandments were to love our Lord and to love each other, and how we can’t love God if we don’t love our neighbor.

And I was taught that above all, if God is perfect, and God is love, then love is perfect, even with our human weakness and limitations.

So when the Supreme Court legalized all marriage throughout the United States, given it was between two consenting adults, I finally saw our nation take steps towards accepting all love, legally and culturally.

The concept of marriage has followed us throughout the ages, and we’ve morphed this idea to fit how we see the world. Some cultures have limited the definition of marriage to one man and one woman, despite humanity’s rich history of joining same-sex couples together in union before their laws and their gods.

But the issue surrounding same-sex marriage isn’t just about the history of marriage, or the history of religion. If changing culture were as easy as giving a small history lesson, there never would have been any controversy in the first place. What it comes down to is belief, and some people hold strong to the belief that marriage can only be between a man and a woman.

I strongly disagree.

Any couple who comes before God to be joined together in spirit, whether they be different or same-sex, are equal in every way, including God’s love.

If you don’t agree with me, that’s your privilege, and I think that’s totally chill. The legalization of all marriage doesn’t mean every American has to accept it straight away. It doesn’t even mean every church, pastor and priest has to perform marriages that they don’t morally agree with. The separation of church and state is a wonderful thing, and like President James Madison said, “Every new & successful example therefore of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance. And I have no doubt that every new example, will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion & government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.”

Long story short, both government and religion function better when the two do not mix. The government’s job is to impart a legal and economic contract to those who want to be married before the law, and the church’s job is to present two people before their creator to be joined together in love.

Sometimes the church and state agree, but not always.

So let’s at least have legal equality on Earth, and let God sort everything out later.

The only thing besides love that I believe is true, and will always be true, no matter how people feel, how they act or what they believe, is that we are all born equal.

And I believe He would agree.