It's a disgrace that gay marriage is still not legal in Northern Ireland. I applaud today's decision. US politics does seem to be infantile at times, more so than ours, which is no shining example. But that's because you have built-in democratic deficits, such as the undue influence of religious lunatics and backwoodsmen, extreme right-wing media with little counterbalance and the sinister impact of wealthy lobby groups such as AIPAC and the NRA. You do share a similar extra democratic deficit with us, which is the severe lack of balanced political education of our young people. We don't mind indoctrinating our kids with religious jumbo-jumbo but we're scared stiff, by the political right, of giving them the critical means to judge politicians on their true merits or otherwise. Hence Raygun, Dubya and the hockey mom.