Some of the gays and lesbians who lined up for "marriage licenses" in San Francisco early this year merely wanted to poke their fingers in the eyes of straights, but others were there because they thought they suddenly had an antidote to loneliness. They deserve not hatred, but pity.

 What's more striking is how the desperate search for horizontal love, person-to-person, is not matched by what should be an even more desperate search for vertical love, person-and-God. Here's Walker Percy again: "I am surrounded by two classes of maniacs. The first are the believers, who think they know the reason why we find ourselves in this ludicrous predicament yet act for all the world as if they don't. The second are the unbelievers, who don't know the reason and don't care if they don't."

 Confession: I often act for all the world as if I'm clueless. So do most Christians I know -- and those who don't act clueless often act as if they know everything, which is even more obnoxious. But here's my continuing New Year's resolution, now 24 years old, taken from the end of the "The Second Coming," after protagonist Will Barrett has fallen in love and also come to understand a little about God: "Am I crazy to want both, her and Him? No, not want, must have. And will have."