The residents of California have not responded lightly to the recent gay marriage debate. In light of ConversantLife's ongoing dialogue about the need for a "third language," I'm offering again an essay I wrote earlier this year.

Along the north shore of Maui is a small highway winding past imperial colors of sea and land. With its mythological history, the Road to Hana is a place many have heard of but few really know. Each day, a host of American mainlanders in their convertible rental cars make the two-hour plus drive to Hana with picnic baskets and digital cameras. Several hours later, with just enough information to feed their wanderlust, they head back to the ruling shore and join the tourist crowds, believing, as it were, that they’ve experienced Hana without even spending one night.

The locals know better.

These day-trippers are island wannabes. Their knowledge is of the kindergarten kind—in big letters and easy to memorize. But the ancient struggles, the mysterious complexity of Hana’s native people lay well out of reach.

How difficult is it, then, for any of us ruler-straight Christians to speak for the struggles of homosexuals. Most of us are intellectual day-trippers, those who have sorted out our understanding of gays and lesbians in a two-hour journey, failing to see the complexity of its issues and rarely praying for spiritual discernment and compassion. Others of us, who have taken more time to explain the controversy, tend to focus on the issue that most closely aligns with our personal expertise. For example, the geneticist explores innate orientation. Is there a gay gene? The child development expert looks at parenting and childhood issues. Did his parents contribute to the aberration? The biblical exegete breaks down the sacred text for answers. Why didn’t Jesus personally condemn gays? The good friend forgives all and looks for loopholes. Who am I to define love for someone else?

But the one thing that every plumb-line heterosexual seems to share is the idea that homosexuals are depraved in ways he is not. And why not? Those unnaturally creepy urges are miles away from my brand of lust, and when it comes to lifestyle, that feather boa in the gay pride parade might as well be the serpent in the Garden.

Had my world been confined to the mainland, I would no doubt agree. But God has brought me, mercifully, alongside the unique sin struggles of homosexually inclined brothers and sisters. I am presumptuous to share their stories—like a tourist sharing secondhand vacation slides—but my relationship with them has brought me into clearer thinking and a fuller understanding of God’s biblical revelation.

I’ve noticed that most Christians do not  find these two facts compatible in any way:

1. God detests homosexual behavior.

2. Homosexuals have an innate, unintentional sexual attraction to “the wrong kind.”

Because these statements feel so incompatible, I find myself modifying them with “Therefore, they must have chosen to be attracted to the same sex” or “Only the unregenerate heart can be attracted to the same sex.”

But what if I had written the following instead?

1. God detests adultery and premarital sex.

2. Heterosexuals have an innate, unintentional sexual attraction to someone who is not his or her spouse.

We are much more comfortable with this pairing. We seem to allow Christian heterosexual men and women to acknowledge their lustful desires, and by bringing it into the light, we then address ways to avoid the sinful behavior. In Matthew 5, when Jesus makes the shocking claim that anger and lust are in the same category as murder and adultery, he suggests that we are all lost without the forgiveness of sins. That was precisely his point. Yet the “normalness” of heterosexual lust shifts it into neutral for most Christians. It is now the behaviors of pre-marital sex or adultery that become the sticking point, not the internal struggle. Ah, behavior is the easy part, as every Pharisee knows.

But when it comes to homosexuality, even the mere suggestion of the internal struggle drives Christians crazy. It is not allowed, rarely talked about in mainstream circles. A dear Christian friend has shared that his longing to avoid homosexual sin—with all its stigmas—has catapulted him into a different “sin stratosphere.” For him, it has brought nights of great loneliness and despair. Those same dark nights have gripped straight men as they covet their neighbor’s wife, or the Christian teenager who obsesses over internet porn. While the men of the church sign up for Promise Keepers and read Every Man’s Battle, we encourage their preventive medicine. But don’t talk about real perversion; it’s so depraved.

Don’t misunderstand my thinking here. Sexual sin of any brand is a distortion of God’s plan. There is no room for arguing that gay sex is holy, free, or God-designed. But we have not identified the homosexual struggle as authentic, and in doing so, we have lost the precious obligation to bear out brother’s burdens. My friend has compared his sexual interest in women to what he might feel for “his fifth grade rock collection” although he recognizes their inherent beauty as God’s creations. So what is a Christ-follower to do when he has wept before God, prayed for deliverance, sought after traditional relationships, and still come up empty?

I feel my intellectual struggle most acutely when I speak with professing Christian brothers and sisters who are trapped in this paradox. My reaction to unbelieving homosexuals is quite different. Much easier, in fact. If a non-Christian wants to argue the validity of a perverse lifestyle, we cannot expect the clarity of God’s Word and the mysteries of his purposes to resonate in his spirit. Are we not transformed by the work of the Holy Spirit? Isn't our thinking shaped and purified by our intimacy with Jesus Christ? The unregenerate spirit cannot understand my arguments against sin. This fact alone tells me that we cannot govern ourselves out of perversion. And since sinners are enormously creative, there are unlimited ways the unregenerate soul will pursue his lusts.

Are all sins equal? I am inclined to think so, but because sexuality represents an uncommon union of spirit and body, its perversions seem to reflect a much deeper rebellion than, let’s say, rudeness to strangers. There’s no doubt that sexual appetites left unattended have exploded more lives than just about any other roadside bomb. Those who reject Christ might say that it's only because of society's hangups, but I disagree. There is more going on than just a legislative debate.

But if an authentic follower of Christ wants to argue that a homosexual lifestyle is to be justified and celebrated, then we have another matter on our hands. Now you have entered new territory, and this becomes a matter of great prayer and delicacy. The terms of God’s commands are non-negotiable, but so is the love we show toward sinners. These biblical debates, led in part by institutions such as the Metropolitan Church, have endless knots, and my job is not to untangle them here. My reading of the Holy Bible, and my own struggles with carnal thinking, are enough for me to accept that only Christ’s forgiveness can bridge the divide between sin and redemption.

So if I have come to terms with the absolutes of sinful behavior, now I’m left with an even more troubling question. Why would God lock one of his beloved children out of a lifelong and passionate union with another person? Isn’t that just a cruel spin of the roulette wheel? I used to think so. But then the question must apply to other sins as well. Why would God disallow any number of experiences? Why can’t I sleep with several men at the same time, drink fabulous wine until I’m drunk, or drive my sports car along a beautiful coastal highway on the left side of the road? Suffering is crap. Pleasure is cool. That’s the American philosophy in six words.

I must recognize that in a society where most people are hard-wired for sexual relationships, we have not acknowledged the sometimes painful gift of singleness and celibacy. The deliverance model, in which organizers hope to reconfigure gay men and women into monogamous, heterosexual spouses, puzzles me in no small degree. It feels like we have an either/or approach to dealing with gayness. I am not suggesting that the many men and women who have found peace through these ministries have been duped. God’s deliverance can take many forms. But is traditional marriage the only antidote?

In what is sometimes called “the third way,” homosexually-oriented men and women who embrace the Paulean benefits of singleness may have found the knots a little easier to untangle. To be free to serve, to be in covenant to Christ alone, to respond to the work of God with abandon—who among us has that gift? It is the lost dialogue in our Christian response to homosexuality.

My final question is the most shadowy of all. Why have some of my friends labored beneath this weight when I have not had to? I used to think that I would never be able to answer that specific question in this lifetime. God seems to have randomly chosen which children will suffer and which ones will not.

But wait a moment. If I should reveal my heart of darkness . . . well, then, maybe I’d be closer to my answer. Can’t you see it? If our depravity is more alike than different, then so is our hope. My own perversions of purity, my own heart of darkness, my own path toward redemption—these are what connects me to my fellow brothers and sisters. Christ’s redemption does not come in lottery tickets to certain lucky winners, but is available to all sinners

Sin’s north shore is a lot closer than I once thought. We cannot quarantine some sinners to the other side of the island while we party with the cool people. We must grieve together when the nights are dark and lonely, and we must praise God together when his grace delivers us both.

Only then will the road to Hana be more than a day trip.