High fences make good neighbors

Last Monday, USA Today and CNN released the results of a recent Gallup Poll in which 1,006 adults were asked the following:\n"Do you think homosexual relations between consenting adults should or should not be legal?"\n"Do you feel that homosexuality should be considered an acceptable alternative lifestyle or not?"\n"Would you favor or oppose a law that would allow homosexual couples to legally form civil unions, giving them some of the legal rights of married couples?"\nThe results were mildly surprising but hardly newsworthy, as they simply showed that between May and July of 2003 overall support for gays and lesbians and their quest for civil liberties took a downward turn. So, what's new? Exactly which heretofore unlearned lesson were we to glean from this little exercise? \nPresident Bush said at a news conference Wednesday, "I believe in the sanctity of marriage. I believe a marriage is between a man and a woman, and I think we ought to codify that one way or the other." But when pressed for a definition of the word "codify," his silence was deafening. \nMeanwhile, back in the world of sentient beings:\n• "The total number of U.S. divorces reported finalized in the year 2000 was 957,200, and future projections place the rate at roughly 43 percent," according to The National Center for Health Statistics.\n• "Over 4 million women are victims of severe assaults by boyfriends and husbands each year. About 1 in 4 women is likely to be abused by a partner in her lifetime," according to the American Medical Association.\n• "Approximately 903,000 children were found to be victims of child abuse in 2001, with approximately 1,300 cases resulting in death," according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.\n• "In the 1990s, there were approximately 120,000 adoptions of children each year, and as of Sept. 30, 2001, 542,000 children were in foster care," according to the National Adoption Information Clearing House.\n• "In 1999, there were 3.8 million 16 to 24-year-olds who were not enrolled in school and had not yet received a high school diploma. And these numbers have not changed appreciably in recent years," according to the National Center for Educational Statistics.\n• "These days, it is statistically easier to get into Harvard than to land a full-time job at Red Lobster," according to ABC Evening News.\nI'm sure that none of this information comes as a total surprise to anyone, as we've been fairly well desensitized to issues of divorce, spousal and child abuse, academic attrition rates and joblessness. \nWhat is surprising, though, is the ease with which so many so-called adults can -- with hubris and malice aforethought -- pass judgment on their fellow human beings based solely on their sexual proclivities. \n Rather than feasting at the agora of titillation, it would behoove us to further scrutinize the overwhelmingly heterosexual fount from which the abovementioned statistics continue to flow. And I can only hope that future Gallup Polls might include the following:\n"It is really preferable for a man to beat a woman than kiss another man?"\n"Is a woman exercising her right to choose less acceptable than retroactive abortion through child abuse and neglect?"\n"Which child would you prefer, the happy, healthy and gay one, or the uneducated, jobless but hopelessly heterosexual one?"\n"What's gonna put food on your table tonight, knowing how and with whom your neighbor makes the beast with two backs or having a snowball's chance in hell of landing and keeping a decent job?"\nNo matter how much fun it might be, you won't find solutions to real problems by pretending they're hidden somewhere in your neighbor's bedroom.