This is “I love you” and want to know how to do it better.

An excerpt from Andrew Marin’s Love is an Orientation, p. 81.

Imagine you’re in the clouds looking down at the Golden Gate Bridge.

It’s suspended above the Golden Gate Strait, connecting the San Francisco Bay to the Pacific Ocean, and you can see that the bridge is anchored down by two large landmasses on each side.  On one side is the gay and lesbian community firmly bolted down.  On the other is the evangelical community firmly planted in the same fashion.

Now from your position in the clouds, remove the entire middle section of the Golden Gate Bridge.  What is left are two brief entrance ramps still anchored on each side with nothing to connect them.  Imagine the GLBT community and the Christian community standing on their respective sides, sincerely and honestly encouraging one another to leave their safe and secure landmass and swim across to the other side, pull themselves out of the water, try to climb up the entrance ramp without ropes or any equipment, and then somehow stumble their way to the other community who is comfortably waiting, wondering what took so long.

There’s got to be a better way.