While the right of gays to adopt children is shaping up as another front in the culture wars, John McCain appears to be taking the battle one step further.

In a statement issued yesterday, McCain kicked off his campaign to bar homosexuals from Adopt-a-Highway programs.

Asked at his news conference how they even learned that gays were adopting highways, McCain replied that the omnipresent green highway signs were giving way to purple, show tunes were being piped into rest-stop bathrooms, and highway medians started getting thinner and neater.

McCain stated that he was particularly troubled by the special treatment accorded gays by HOV lanes, and that the E-Z Pass System was a coded message for the promiscuous gay lifestyle.

McCain predicted that any highways that continued to be sponsored by gays or bisexuals would be punished through eternal “Godlock.”

President Bush immediately threw his support behind such legislation, asserting that “highways are more sacred to Americans than even marriage, and should be defined as a place where bickering should take place only between a man and a woman.”

Leading gay rights organizations quckly assailed the proposal, claiming that the original American highway travelers, Lewis and Clark, were gay lovers. A spokesperson for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance added that the father of the modern interstate highway system, President Eisenhower, inspired men as well as women to wear “I Like Ike” buttons.

McCain concluded his press conference by revealing his next crusade, to amend “America The Beautiful,” by deleting the lyrics “For Purple Mountain Majesties, Above the Fruited Plain.”