It might be miraculous bordering on the incredible, but the Nationalist Party seems to have woken up to the idea that not only do we not really care what goes on between consenting adults as long as they don't scare the horses, but that at the same time we are concerned enough about the welfare of all citizens to want personal arrangements to be given legal frameworks that protect the individuals involved.

In other words, we don't give a toss what happens in the bedroom but do want every citizen to have access to a framework of rights that protects his or her interests outside it, without the imposition of external moral or other strictures other than those designed for the protection of the individuals concerned and only the individuals concerned.

The move in this direction taken by the PN is therefore one that can only be welcomed, accompanied by a sense of "about flipping time too" and "good, now we can stop debating angels on heads of pins and let people get on with their lives".

Predictably, this did not go down at all well with Labour's Lil'Elves and their heroes.   Facebook was peppered, for a bit, with more than slightly bitter wisecracks about the PN's change of tack, demonstrating beyond a reasonable doubt that these so-called liberals, are sore about Labour having been shown to be behind the curve yet again.

I call them "so-called", incidentally, because they don't seem to have any qualms about Labour's velvety-ghettoisation of anyone who does not fit the heterosexual, married with two point four kids paradigm, for all their liberalism.   

It was a Nationalist MP who started the ball rolling about divorce, which started the ball rolling on the whole discussion of relationships and society's right to impose a view on the way these are regulated.   Whether or not said Nationalist MP was right to do what he did the way he did is now water over the weir, the fact is that the windows have finally been opened and the PN has smelt the roses, to the chagrin of Labour.    

What price the prissiness of the Cyrus Engerers of this world and their characterisation of the PN as terminally hidebound now, huh?   They've joined the party that puts up walls and pays lip-service only to real tolerance and liberalism.  You only have to consider the way Labour welcomes rabid anti-gays into its headquarters because it is politically correct to have a party for them to see what underlies the positions taken about pretty much any subject.

This is not surprising, really, since this is the party whose exponents allow you to have an opinion only insofar as it is theirs.   If you do not toe the line, you are hounded, insulted and declared unfit to be seen in polite society by such paragons of democratic thought as the Brothers Grim(a).