A letter that I wrote to my State Senator:
Senator Stein,
My name is Aaron Hood and I am a graduate student at North Carolina State University. I’m writing you because North Carolina prohibits gay couples from marrying. I find it disheartening that two people who love each other are barred from entering into a legal relationship that our society has chosen to define as the ultimate commitment that one person can make to another. Marriage has become the way in which many relationships are defined in North Carolina and our fellow citizens who identify as gay or lesbian cannot define their relationship using this societal norm.
Several people who are my colleagues are prevented from being married to their partner for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with their love for each other. These issues that stand in the way of gay marriage are simply issues of ignorance and fear. People fear what they do not know. What they think they  don’t know is how gay relationships work. I think that there is an assumption that somehow gay couples are vastly different from heterosexual couples, but the emotions that guide gay couples are exactly the same. They are emotions of passion and love that make people want to commit to sharing an entire lifetime with another person. Amid the issues within our global community, I can see no reason why demonstrations of passion and love should be prohibited or even limited.
I’m not a lawyer; I do not know the steps, logistically and politically, that it will take to repeal any laws that ban same sex marriage or what it would take a gain support for same sex marriage. However, I ask that you consider working to encourage love among our fellow North Carolinians during your time in the state senate. Because same sex marriage truly has everything to do with love, anything else is just conjecture.
Sincerely,
Aaron Hood