Which way to Neanderthal?

OK. Here’s one for you.

Germany is one of those countries where

a. they don’t have the death penalty
b. they have universal health care
c. gay people have full citizenship rights and can even have their foreign partners accorded those rights as well.

Color me green with envy.

Not like the United States of America, where gays and lesbians are labelled sinners by the fundamentalists and straightjacketed as people seeking to destroy the family and bring down Christian civilization, right?

A whole bunch of gay people I know think longingly of places like Germany, where when you say culture wars you think of Bismarck and those silly people living a hundred years ago. The Germany of today has come through fire, left behind racism and sexism and all that crap and embraced the modern world.

Right?

Well if you bought that, then explain to me what makes this Karin Wolff character tick.

Unless you make a point of following news in Germany, she has probably not entered your radar.

Let me give you some background.

She is, among other things, Minister of Culture for the State of Hesse (you know, that place which produced those little soldiers that nearly kept us British).

And she is, among other things, a Lesbian.

So far so good, right? Nothing wrong with lesbians or with ministers of culture, all other things being equal, right?

If you’re so inclined, read about the lesbian romance of Karin Wolff. It’s a sweet story. If you read German, it’s available at http://www.bild.t-online.de/BTO/news/2007/07/04/cdu-politikerin-liebe/karin-wolff-heilpraktikerin,geo=.html (And if you don’t, you can always click on “Translate this page” or go to Alta Vista http://babelfish.altavista.com/, paste in the article and English it.

But before you get all smarmy and awwwwwww all over your shoes, you’ve got some more reading to do.

This one is Englished for you by Deutsche Welle: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,,00.html

If you don’t have time for that, either, here’s the bottom line.

This nice Lesbian lady is throwing her support behind the teaching of the Biblical version of creation alongside Darwin’s Theory of Evolution in the schools in Hesse.

Lordy lordy lordy. Haven’t had this much cognitive dissonance since Dick Cheney told us he was proud of his lesbian daughter and her new baby.

Let me see. The Hessian Culture Ministry is in Wiesbaden. Luisenplatz 10, to be exact. And that’s how far from the Neander Valley (Neanderthal, in German)?

193 kilometers. Less than two hours by car, the way they drive on the Autobahn.

But if you happen to be in Wiesbaden, just knock on Karin’s door and you're already there.