The times in which we live:
- A UN committee has determined that a pension scheme that distinguishes between homosexual and normal (but unmarried) couples violates Australia’s obligations under international human rights treaties. The obligations aren’t really stated anywhere, but they’re there if you read between the lines.
- Meanwhile, in America, illegal aliens are suing for the right to a state college education. Lawyers for the (anonymous) plaintiffs say the schools are punishing students whose illegal status is no fault of their own. It’s not clear, though, where the punishment is—all the state is saying is that the illegality shouldn’t benefit the students.
- And finally, a 68-year-old man who had recently gotten himself castrated and since then has been undergoing cosmetic surgery and taking hormone injections got an insurance company to give him life insurance at women’s rates: Transsexual promotes gender rights. The story is full of human-interest details about the “gender rights activist, Unitarian Universalist Church board member, part-time dominatrix and self-described ‘lipstick lesbian,'” and everyone seems pleased that his success in reducing his premiums may be “the beginning of the end of bigotry and discrimination by the insurance industry.”