The official publication date of today's iNews Cayman is Monday April 1st, although it went live yesterday evening (Sunday March 31).

And, as most of us know, April 1st
is known around the world as April Fool's Day or All Fool's Day.

The jokes and their victims are called
April fools. People playing April Fool jokes often expose their prank
by shouting "April fool(s)" at the unfortunate victim(s).
Some newspapers, magazines and other published media report fake
stories, which are usually explained the next day or below the news
section in smaller letters.

So which below is the April Fool's
joke?

1. The Tower of London is now giving
   free washing to all lions. It is charging an admission fee of One
   Pound sterling, to watch the washing.
   
2. It is now legal for same-sex
   couples to be married in the Cayman Islands.
   

The answer, my friends, is blowing in the winds. The winds of change, and that means number 1 is the April Fool's joke. Number 2 is true.

Despite the rhetoric from MLA's here a
few years ago that on their watch there will be no same-sex marriages
allowed, it is here. And here to stay.

Even one of the staunchest opponents to
same-sex marriages those few years ago, McKeeva Bush, went the way of
the winds of change and said publically last week, “Whatever the
legal word is, that will be the word, the government cannot overrule
the court.”

Chief Justice Anthony Smellie has now
given his decision.

Caymanian same-sexcouple, Chantelle Day
and Vickie Bodden Bush, stood up for their rights and went to court.

I am not surprised at the verdict.

Bush also said, prejudice is not the
Caymanian way. He's not hearing what I am hearing.

It is a pity the Chief Justice didn't
wait and make his decision on Monday.

Until twelve noon it could all have
been an April Fools joke.

You see, in the UK, where we are bound
mainly by their laws, the joking ceases at midday.

In Scotland, April Fools' Day was
traditionally called 'Huntigowk Day'. The name is a corruption of
'Hunt the Gowk', "gowk" being Scots for a cuckoo or a
foolish person;

In England a "fool" is known
by different names around the country, including a "noodle",
"gob", "gobby" or "noddy".

“Noddy”? Now he was a character
created by English children's author Enid Blyton. And Blyton got into
big trouble over twenty years ago when she had a friend of Noddy's
called “Golliwog”.

That character was removed from all of the Noddy books. You see, although Golliwog wasn't a villain, he was naughty. And, "although the golliwog, it seems, was not in origin a racist icon, whereas the offensive term 'wog' had a separate derivation.

"However, there is no doubt that the golly came to prominence in an age that was racist and that he was all too easily implicated in racist discourses, both in name and image." - author, David Rudd.

If Blyton was alive today, she could
have had Big Ears and Noddy falling in love and getting married in
the most beautiful country in the world, a British protectorate
called The Cayman Islands.

And, just like Chantelle Day and Vickie
Bodden Bush will I'm sure, have lived happily ever after..

And for an April Fool's joke we could turn the whole of Noddy's marriage into one of today's soap opera's and add in P.C. Plod, the policeman to break it up. He was also Noddy's good friend. and secretly wanted him, too.

Sadly, the way we are going now, nothing will be an April Fools joke.

PS: Since posting this Editorial I found I left out a statistic that I want to share with you. In the USA it is now almost 50/50 the percentage of couples living together and having babies out of wedlock and the ones that are married. There are 60 to 40 percent more couples living together against married couples.

These stats are for heterosexual couples.

In the same sex couples 75% want to be married and that number is rising.

Of course some want this status as it helps their tax returns.

And what is my point? The majority of lesbian, and gay, adults are in committed relationships and many couples have been together 10 or more years.  Empirical research shows that lesbian and gay couples have levels of relationship satisfaction similar to or higher than those of heterosexual couples.

It's a strange world isn't it?