Religious scholar Reza Aslan is truly brilliant. Aslan co-authored an open letter to his fellow Muslims defending same-sex marriage and said that discrimination against gays is the same as discrimination against Muslims, reported RawStory.

“We’re writing to you about the Supreme Court’s decision to legalize gay marriage in all fifty states,” wrote Aslan and co-author Hasan Minhaj. “The good news is that a whopping 42 percent of you support marriage equality, as do both of our Muslim elected officials in the United States Congress.”

“When you are an underrepresented minority – whether Muslim, African American, female, etc. – democracy is an all or nothing business,” the letter continued. “You fight for everyone’s rights (and the operative word here is ‘fight’), or you get none for yourself. Democracy isn’t a buffet. You can’t pick and choose which civil liberties apply to which people. Either we are all equal, or the whole thing is just a sham.”

Aslan is the modern day voice of reason in regards to religious and sexual equality. Whether it be about discrimination against Muslims or gays, Aslan always finds the level-headed approach and completely dismantles extremism of any kind.