In the avalanche of rainbows, it’s easy to forget that marriage equality is a step toward LGBT equality, not its end goal. Full civil rights for LGBT people would mean accepting them as married couples, sure, but also accepting them as people who might have sex outside of marriage—just like Bristol Palin.

The impulse to mock Palin for her predicament is well-nigh impossible to resist. Obviously, I have succumbed to it here. But we should not let the deliciousness of the irony keep us from sensing the genuine human pain that’s at the center of it. Whatever her faults and hypocrisies, Palin is now single when she didn’t expect to be single, and a mother in a family structure that her closest allies regard as second-best. While she likely doesn’t share other single mothers’ economic struggles, she faces the same emotional obstacle course of intense joy and lonely exhaustion.

After all, what really separates conservatives and progressives in their reactions to unplanned pregnancies isn’t how they feel about the pregnancy, it’s how they feel about the woman carrying it. I hope Palin finds the support she needs, and I will be happy to bake her cake.