It was supposed to be a quick poll. Six months after mooting the survey to gauge public attitudes towards homosexuals and the likely reception to an ordinance protecting sexual minorities from discrimination, career civil servant Stephen Fisher, deputy secretary of the Department of Home Affairs, was shaking his head, stunned at the pressure his office had come under.
'We thought we'd just draft a questionnaire and then do it,' he said. 'In this particular case, it's not that simple. The very idea of conducting a survey is controversial.'
No sooner had the Home Affairs Department indicated the government's intention to revisit the court of public opinion, which indicated in 1995 that Hong Kong was not ready to address the issue of homosexuality, than the battles lines were drawn.
Mr Fisher has since last July met with groups representing, and sympathetic to, Hong Kong's gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community. He has heard from Amnesty International, the Human Rights Council, the Equal Opportunities Commission, and gay and lesbian activists.
He has also listened to those opposed to homosexuals, the so-called 'family values groups' led by the Society for Truth and Light.
'There is division, to put it mildly,' Mr Fisher said. So entrenched are the positions that he doesn't dare put the two sides in the same room.
About 2,000 people in Hong Kong, selected at random by the government's contract market research agency, MVA Hong Kong, will be asked what they think about homosexuals.
