Is this the exception or the rule?

Blogging is new to me, and this is my first post in my first blog. It starts with a few questions I've wrestled with the last three or so years, ever since the tenure time clock I was on began to run out:

Is it usual or unusual for a university which labels itself a "research institution" to expect junior faculty to teach four different preps, including graduate classes each semester, to do service comparable to that of already-tenured faculty, and to publish at the same level as universities where faculty have 2/3 teaching loads or less?

Is this expectation realistic?

Does a one-course reduction from the normal four different preps, given during a junior faculty member's first semester of employment, really constitute support of that junior faculty member's scholarship efforts?

Is it usual/standard practice at research institutions for book contracts and publications in-press NOT to count toward tenure?

Is a peer review committee really a peer review committee if it consists of all men when the person seeking tenure is a woman or vice versa?

Is teaching really not important?

Is service really not important?

If these questions sound stupid to anyone, perhaps I may be forgiven for asking them when they're about to have a serious impact on the rest of my life, and when those whom I've asked in my own small circle of peers and friends in academia have given me mixed responses.