Our need for the first annual observation of No Shame Day on Monday, July 2 could be traced to any number of get-right-quick antidotes. Despite the growing number of mental illness diagnoses in the black community, many are loath to accept their legitimacy.

The cloud of chronic traumatic encephalopathy -- the concussion-related brain disease that had led to mental illness and Alzheimer's-like symptoms -- hangs over the apparent suicide of Junior Seau, one of the N.F.L.'s great linebackers. The news was the final straw for Ta-Nehisi Coates of the Atlantic, who wrote that he could no longer find enjoyment in watching football with the increasingly grim prospects for its long-term practitioners, and so he was giving it up.

As you might have heard by now, President Barack Obama has expressed his belief that gay people should be able to get married. I want to take a moment to talk about the terms of the discussion. My concerns can fit broadly under what I'll call The Equality Problem.