Cross-Border Tidbits

In a startling move for the country known as the second-largest Roman Catholic nation in the world, our neighboring state of Coahuila, Mexico, recently passed a measure to legalize same-sex unions. (So that's where all the area's same-sex couples went.) The law – which, among other things, will offer social security benefits to homosexual partners – comes on the heels of the November legislation that passed in Mexico City, the first place in Mexico to legalize civil unions. Both bills are modeled on France's law, which grants property, monetary, and parenting rights to civil partners, though adoption by homosexual parents is still not an option. Take note, fundamentalists! It can be done! And, also notice that Coahuila has not been engulfed in flames while we, in all our homophobic piousness, are encased in ice.

Meanwhile, back in the Land of Opportunity, Babies "R" Us started off the year feeling the erstwhile wrath of both the Minutemen and the immigration rights movement. The company's First Baby contest, which crowns the baby born at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve with a $2,500 savings bond, got ugly when four babies ended up being born at said stroke, messing up matters. Then, one baby got disqualified because the contest rules state that the winning parents have to be legal residents. That didn't sit too well with immigrant rights advocates who, it seems, just don't have enough to worry about these days. So, to give themselves something to do, they pointed out the injustice to the toy store, which, ever in the holiday spirit, decided to forgo the rules and give all four babies the title and all the glory and money it brings.

Enter the Minutemen, who in a flurry of publicity intended to tout their No. 1 priority – "No Double Standards for Corporate America!" – sent out this warm communiqué: "Rather than uphold the rules of their contest or support the immigration laws of our country, Babies "R" Us has caved into the pressure from the open borders lobby, thereby amplifying the pre-existing illegal immigration crisis plaguing our country." Welcome to our country, first American baby with undocumented-immigrant parents born this year, and a happy new year, too.