"It’s clear to me that at a moment like this, being more open about it could do some good."

South Bend, Indiana, is a town of about 100,000 people, the fourth largest city in Indiana, and home of the University of Notre Dame, a Catholic school which is the town's biggest employer.

Its Democratic Mayor since 2012, Pete Buttigieg, is 33 years old, and has lived quite a remarkable life so far. Born in South Bend, he attended Harvard University (and graduated magna cum laude), was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, worked for John Kerry's presidential campaign, and is a veteran of the Afghanistan War.

He is also gay, which he publicly disclosed in a piece for the South Bend Tribune this week:

Experiences with friends or family members coming out have helped millions of Americans to see past stereotypes and better understand what being gay is — and is not.

...I was well into adulthood before I was prepared to acknowledge the simple fact that I am gay. It took years of struggle and growth for me to recognize that it's just a fact of life, like having brown hair, and part of who I am.

Putting something this personal on the pages of a newspaper does not come easy. We Midwesterners are instinctively private to begin with, and I'm not used to viewing this as anyone else's business.

But it's clear to me that at a moment like this, being more open about it could do some good. For a local student struggling with her sexuality, it might be helpful for an openly gay mayor to send the message that her community will always have a place for her. And for a conservative resident from a different generation, whose unease with social change is partly rooted in the impression that he doesn't know anyone gay, perhaps a familiar face can be a reminder that we're all in this together as a community.

Whenever I've come out to friends and family, they've made clear that they view this as just a part of who I am. Their response makes it possible to feel judged not by sexual orientation but by the things that we ought to care about most, like the content of our character and the value of our contributions.

...Like most people, I would like to get married one day and eventually raise a family. I hope that when my children are old enough to understand politics, they will be puzzled that someone like me revealing he is gay was ever considered to be newsworthy. By then, all the relevant laws and court decisions will be seen as steps along the path to equality. But the true compass that will have guided us there will be the basic regard and concern that we have for one another as fellow human beings — based not on categories of politics, orientation, background, status or creed, but on our shared knowledge that the greatest thing any of us has to offer is love.

Beautiful.