One year ago today, someone wearing a robe addressed the topic of marriage with the following:

“No union is more profound in marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than they once were.”

Beautiful passage. It’s good enough to grace the program of a wedding ceremony (Certainly good enough for mine, if ever that event comes to fruition).

Yet, no priest, pastor, or state official at a wedding uttered these words. The robed man credited with this quote is associate justice of the Supreme Court Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion on Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark SCOTUS decision that legalized same-sex marriage in all US states and territories.

Since June 26, 2015, a lot has changed regarding the status of LGBT Americans. New reports this week show same-sex marriage among LGBT individuals increased 33 percent since the Supreme Court struck down state-level bans on same-sex marriage. Just last Friday, the President designated the Stonewall Inn the first national monument to LGBT rights. As a heterosexual LGBT ally, watching it unfold has been nothing less than heartwarming. In short, millions of Americans can now finally say they are considered equal in the eyes of the law. President Obama put it fittingly that day: “This decision affirms what millions of Americans already believe in their hearts: When all Americans are treated as equal we are all more free.”

But also within the past year, we’ve seen some states fight back. The recent round of transgender discrimination laws in states such as North Carolina, and the 11 states suing President Obama over his support for transgender rights prove we still have fundamental issues over LGBT rights in this country, even post-Obergefell.

The debate is fervent. “I don’t want my daughter peeing next to a man,” and “Why can only cisgender individuals use the bathroom that corresponds to their gender?” or “Sexual predators now have equal access to my child’s school’s bathroom.”

The hypocrisy from the anti-transgender movement is sometimes hard to see, but it’s there. Like our Founding Fathers, who claimed we were all created equal, despite owning slaves, this movement claims to be rooted in equality, but badly misses the point. Despite no evidence to the contrary, North Carolina’s HB2 passed on the basis of preventing the nonexistent possibility of men attacking children in bathrooms, as if it wasn’t easy enough for anyone to walk into a bathroom of the opposite gender to begin with.

The Obama administration said it plainly enough: transgender discrimination is sex discrimination. And sex discrimination is outlawed in many Federal circles, such as under Title IX.

Even more plain and simple: discrimination is discrimination. Regardless if you’re opposed to LGBT equality on the grounds of deep and sincerely-held beliefs, your beliefs aren’t the issue here. The young person too afraid to walk out of his or her own room for fear of being bullied because he or she isn’t “masculine enough” is. The fact that preventing transgender individuals from using the bathroom that corresponds to their gender, which in turn actually causes more physical harm than good, is. A culture that uses “gay” as slang for “pretty much anything you don’t like” is.

The issue here is basic: equality. If you’re not willing to set your beliefs aside for the sake of it--for the sake of all Americans--then none of us are truly equal.