I think I’ve mentioned before that I view gay marriage as a “duh” right. Anyone arguing against it is a bigot trying to deny a civil right to a minority solely because they don’t like that minority. I can’t fathom how anyone could view it as anything but that.

Of all the people that I figured would view things my way, an 86-year-old Army veteran from Maine, a life-long Republican and VFW chaplain, wasn’t high on the list. And yet his reasoning is so compelling:

The woman at my polling place asked me: do I believe in equality for gay and lesbian people? I was pretty surprised to be asked a question like that. It made no sense to me. Finally I asked her: what do you think I fought for in Omaha Beach?

He calls Freedom and Equality “values worth dying for,” before adding, “We must have equal rights for everyone. It’s what this country was started for.” In the shockingly lucid words of one Youtube commenter, “He fought for freedom sixty years ago, and he’s still fighting for it. “