ONLY ABOUT MARRIAGE?

That’s what the backers of Michigan’s state constitutional amendment against gay couples’ rights said during the campaign. Proposal 2 backers claimed their amendment was “only about marriage … this is not about rights or benefits or how people choose to live their life.” This is the same claim made by Matt Daniels of the federal amendment, an amendment that would deny gay couples any of the “incidents” of civil marriage under any name. Well, in Michigan, we now see what the real agenda is. There’s an existing agreement in Ohio granting domestic partner benefits to gay couples who are state employees. One Republican legislator wants that agreement torn up:

“It’s unfathomable how, before the ballot boxes are hardly put away, some state leaders are going against citizens’ wishes to even consider this issue in the labor contract negotiations process,” [Rep. Ken] Bradstreet said in a news release.

Now let’s see whether Matt Daniels cavils at this attack on gay couples’ rights. (Correction: In the first version of this item, I confused Ohio with Michigan. Fixed now. Apologies.)

ATTLEE BEATS CHURCHILL: Here’s a wonderful insight into the bias within the British academy. A poll of 139 British historians and political scientists placed Clement Attlee ahead of Winston Churchill in a ranking of the 20th Century’s prime ministers. Britain is still recovering from the damage Attlee did to the British economy by a wholesale government take-over. Without Churchill, there wouldn’t have been an independent Britain to wreck. And you thought America’s professors were left-wing! (Hat tip: Clive Davis).