Just after Holland comes Belgium. Reuters reports today that the Belgian government intends to introduce legislation very shortly to legalize equal marriage rights for homosexuals. The Health minister gave her reasons: “The government considers the right to marry a constitutional right, and the chance to marry the sole true opportunity to see that homosexual and heterosexual couples are treated in the same way.” Couldn’t have put it better myself. The prime minister of this 75 percent Roman Catholic country has said, “There are no objections on principle for the moment.” This news comes on the heels of Holland’s legalization of equal marriage rights on Sunday and a Gill Foundation study that asked over 1000 gay men and lesbian what their primary objective was in political change. 32 percent said equal marriage rights – more than for any other issue. Those who once argued that we should leave this issue alone, that it would never win, that its time had not come, are slowly being proved wrong. Far from being defensive about this, I think gay leaders should be even more aggressive. We should move bills in every state we can – not simply to deflect attacks on equal marriage rights, but to legalize marriage for all citizens equally. Paul Varnell wrote an excellent column recently on these lines. Check it out.
SAVE THE COWS: A definitive piece in New Scientist rebuts the notion that mass slaughter is the best way to restrain foot-and-mouth disease. In fact, these tactics are primarily a way to protect EU agriculture from Eastern bloc products. Tony Blair has now put off elections to cope with the crisis – and its fallout. Could cows save the Tories? Stranger things have happened.
The Dish 