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General Peter Pace of the Marines, who is also chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has put the cat among the pigeons by averring that on the whole he does think homosexual activity is, well, immoral, and good cause for dishonorable discharge if a member of the armed services is found engaged in it. This set off the usual reaction, with a homosexual spokesman announcing that 65,000 gays now in the military were insulted by the general’s remarks and felt their loyalty was being impugned. Senator Warner of Virginia, seeing this impressive number of offended service people, announced that he didn’t think homosexual activity was immoral. Other people were more offended by the claim that there were that many gays in the service and suggested that the figure was much more likely to be 6,500 or some smaller number. The gay crusaders are in the habit of exaggerating their numbers by squaring the actual figures and then squaring the squares.
A number that was not exaggerated , though, was the number of people responding to a poll question sent out by America Online that day, asking whether people (a) supported the general or; (b) disagreed with him or; © had no opinion. The answer was clear: of 303,976 people responding by 8:30 that night, 64% or 196,465 agreed. 37% or so disagreed and the rest had no opinion. The 64% was a slight decline from the morning count, which was 65% pro-Pace.
Nothing could be more conclusive as to the way the country is going on the gay issue. You could add all the polls in the country together, Gallup, Harris, Zogby, Marist, CBS, and on and on, and not get a total of 300,000 respondents between the lot of them. They operate trying to read the auspices using delicatessen slices off the body of the electorate; AOL hacks off a whole haunch of beef and gets the real picture. Not only that, but they asked a straight question, not rigged in any way. Yes or No or Don’t Know was the choice. If Senator Warner was paying attention, he would have found out that he was out of step with his constituency. Somehow I feel that the notion of gay marriage and gay rights generally will cease to agitate the public as much as it has, when the fact begins to dawn that there is no real constituency for it. The gays will just have to get along with the same rights as the rest of us, that’s all. Since the rest of us aren’t homosexuals, we don’t claim the right to marry people of our own sex, so they’ll have to forget about that one.
The people who want to do things like revising that old poem to say “We loved with a love that was more than love, I and my Hannibal Lee” are going to be a little disappointed, I’m afraid. And at this point I’m ending this week’s essay. Too much harping on unhealthy subjects rouses suspicion in some people that the harper may be a bit unhealthy himself, or else why is he always going on about the same thing? I deny this. I just wanted to give General Pace a little support even if he never will know about it. Now I’ve said my say and will shut up for a change. I’ll be back next week at my usual length, and I’ll find something else to write about. Global warming? Nah. Balance of trade? Fuhgedabout it. Iraq? Please. I have a problem, I guess. I need a subject. Where’ll I get it? Plagiarism? Never. Inspiration! That’s the answer. I’ll be waiting. | |