Confusion All Round

Last night's TVB news, talking about a case of burd flu in China:

"The girl's mother also developed a fever, but her temperature has come down and is in good condition."

I'm glad the temperature is in good condition - I wonder how the mother is?

Also reported last night was the case of "W", a male-to-female transsexual in Hong Kong who is seeking the legal right to marry her boyfriend.  W has had gender reassignment surgery and both her Hong Kong ID card and passport now specify her sex as female.  Yet despite officially recognising her as a woman for most purposes, the government is arguing that she is still a man for the purpose of marriage.

One of its arguments in the Court of Appeal yesterday was apparently that "a criterion of marriage is to produce the next generation".  There may be valid reasons for not letting W marry a man (though I can't think of any), but this is certainly not one of them.  If it applied this logic consistently, the government would also have to consider the inability to procreate an impediment to marriage for infertile couples and post-menopausal women.  Not even the Catholic Church would go that far!