CBC Punny Business

It was confirmed to me tonight that appreciation of a good, brutal pun is one of the best determinations of good character there is.

CBC on-air people and writers seem to have a temptation to pun that makes even me blush. I nearly died when I read this article: Link.

'Infinitely gay' celebration of same-sex marriage erupts in Spain's capital
02:48 AM EDT Jul 21

MADRID, Spain (AP) - Jubilant over a new law legalizing gay marriage, hundreds of thousands of people packed the torrid streets of Madrid on Saturday, banging drums, dancing to booming techno music and crying victory over discrimination.

"This is infinitely gay," Ivan Sanchez, a 26-year-old pharmacist, said in the din of a throng snaking its way through Spain's capital.

"There are no words to express it. We are all equal."

"The constitution itself says so. Both men and women are equal," he said on the day the law cleared its last bureaucratic formality, being published Saturday in an official government registry.

The law takes effect Sunday.

Flatbed trucks crowded with young men and women honked their horns as they made their way through the streets under a blazing summer sun in a procession led by Culture Minister Carmen Calvo and other members of the governing Socialist party, which sponsored the law.

"Now that some of us are more free, all Spaniards are more free," said Cholo Soto, 30, a government clerk who joined the march.

The Interior Ministry put attendance at 100,000 but the turnout looked much bigger.

It took more than four hours for the raucous, festive parade to proceed from a downtown square to another one about one kilometre away after a roughly rectangular route flanked by cheering spectators. Organizers put the figure at two million. Such disparities are common at Spanish demonstrations.

The rally culminated by spilling into Plaza de Colon.

In the same square in 2003, the late Pope John Paul said mass for an estimated one million people and said traditionally Roman Catholic Spain had to re-embrace its religious roots. The church is vehemently opposed to the new same-sex marriage law.

It was signed Friday by King Juan Carlos and Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

A Socialist official said the party will now seek legislation to protect Spain's estimated 8,000 transsexuals.

Gay couples are not expected to start marrying until late this month because of the paperwork needed before they go to town halls and other civil bodies that marry people in Spain, said Spain's main federation of gays and lesbians, known as the FELGT.

The law gives same-sex couples the right to wed, adopt children and inherit each other's property, making their legal status the same as that of heterosexual couples.

Pedro Zerolo, a Madrid town councillor who is gay and heads the Socialist party's social policy department, said Friday when the legislature reconvenes after its summer recess the government will present a bill that aims to regulate treatment of transsexuals. There is no such law now.