There is zero political correctness in captivity. No one tiptoes around emotions or tries to figure out ways to put things delicately. Contemporary millennial vernacular with its “triggers” and “safe spaces” is a language alien to the chain gang. Here, racial slurs are commonplace, women are bitches and hoes, and even the LGBTQ community doesn’t bother saying LGBTQ. They just call themselves sissies and punks like everyone else.

It is through the blunt prism of this parallel universe that I first noticed presidential hopeful Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Noticed and immediately dismissed him based on the fact that he’s gay. How could I do such a thing? The same way most people do ignorant things: I did it unconsciously. I live in a world where homosexuals rank somewhere around child molesters and snitches in the food chain. No way a sissy could lock horns with Donald Trump. Much less strongmen world leaders like Putin, Kim Jong-un, or Duterte. No way America would elect a gay dude to the White House.

Then I heard him on the debate stage. Several times. And I watched him on the Sunday morning round-table shows. The more I listen to him speak, the more difficult it is to dismiss him based on who he loves. What business is it of mine anyway? He’s not auditioning for The Bachelor, he’s running for president. It’s his vision and character that matter.

Mayor Pete is an Afghan war vet, Naval intelligence, Rhodes scholar who speaks seven languages. At age 37, he’s the youngest candidate in the field which means, more than any other candidate, he has a stake in things like climate change and the national debt because he’ll still be around when these fiscal time bombs are set to go off. He describes addiction as “a medical problem, not a moral failure,” seeks to end prison profiteering, and abolish minimum mandatory sentencing. He thinks we should measure our economy not by the Dow Jones but by the income of the 90%. He’s moderate in his politics. He’s not out there trumpeting “free everything for everyone and Jeff Bezos is gonna pay for it!” Any far-left president as a knee jerk response to four years of Trump’s America First/Pat Robertson brand of isolationism would only pave the way for another wild over correction in 2024. Too much is at stake for that. We need a uniter. Someone who will galvanize and energize, not polarize. But make no mistake, Mayor Pete would eviscerate Donald Trump on the debate stage. Run circles around him.

And yet.

There’s still this lingering voice in my head. “Come on, man. Really? There’s no way…” I keep thinking of the Conservative Christian wing of my friends and family. Good people who held their noses and voted for Trump not because they’re closet racists or because they believed that Hillary was running a sex ring out of the back of a D.C. pizza shop, but out of concern for the unborn. They believed they were doing the right thing. The Christian thing. How could those people of faith ever reconcile their spiritual walk with voting for a gay president? I don’t know. Seems like the Sermon on the Mount would supersede an obscure line in Romans, but I’m the wrong guy to argue Scripture. Ultimately, I think that anyone who would hold this against him at the ballot box is probably already voting for Trump anyway.

I don’t have a say in the matter. Other than these words. I forfeited my right to participate in our democratic experiment in 2005 when I was arrested for armed robbery. Humiliating but true. But if I did have a vote, I’d be casting it for Mayor Pete. I think he’ll make a terrific president.