Archive for biology
Certainties? If Only
Responding to my first post on the subject of late-term abortions, Andrew Sullivan takes issue with me on anencephalic fetuses (i.e., those whose brains will not develop to enable cognition, and most of whom will die shortly after birth). In the context of questioning his opposition to late-term abortions even in such cases, I had [...]
Beginnings of Life, Impossible Issues
I’ve got two somewhat related topics to discuss today. Let’s start with the unpleasant subject of late-term abortions: On Keith Olbermann’s “Countdown” last night,1 Andrew Sullivan said that he was moved by the tragic testimonials of those who’d had such abortions when faced with the prospect of giving birth to seriously disabled children, some of [...]
Bryan Caplan Inspires a Real-Life Discussion About Mini-Me
Bryan Caplan, in a laudable effort to sell more of his upcoming book, “Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids,” has asked readers of his blog whether he should keep this paragraph in, or take it out:
I confess that I take anti-cloning arguments personally. Not only do they insult the identical twin sons I already have; [...]
Of Fa’afafine, “Gay Animals,” and the (Mis)Uses of Science
About a decade ago, I bought and sort of read Biological Exuberance:Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity, by Bruce Bagemihl. I say “sort of read” in that the book isn’t really meant to be read from cover to cover. It’s an encyclopedic compendium of scientific research that exhaustively — I mean exhaustively — details incidents of homosexual [...]
Marriage Equality in Prose and Poetry (or, “The Figuring-it-out at Kitchen Tables”)
Let’s start with this startling video. (Really, watch it. It’s only two minutes long and will amaze you if you’ve not seen it.)
So here we have the Iowa Senate’s Democratic Leader, Mike Gronstal, saying that:
(1) The battle over marriage equality will be over soon, once his daughter’s generation takes over. Nate Silver over at fivethirtyeight.com [...]
Catching up to Reality on Blood Donations by Gay Men
When Obama was seeking the Presidency, the GLBT community had a well-defined punch list of action items, and he promised big things on all of them: repeal of DADT; repeal of DOMA (although he doesn’t support marriage equality); passing ENDA; passing inclusive hate crimes law (the only hole punched so far). A few others, notably [...]
Another Conversation Not to Have
Here’s a fool-proof plan for spoiling an otherwise-delightful dinner with friends: Talk about the various ways one might build a family.
This I learned recently, after getting into a surprisingly heated exchange with a couple that we count among our very closest friends. I was reminded that everyone has very strong opinions, not only about how they’ve [...]
Valuing a Child’s Best Interest?
On Tuesday, the Montana Supreme Court decisively ruled that a non-biological parent who had lived with her same-sex partner for some ten years, and with whom she had co-parented the couple’s children, had parental rights under a state statute. An in-depth analysis of the decision, Kulstad v. Maniaci (and a citation to it), is available [...]
Fatherhood and Parenthood: A Gay Dad’s Reflection on Father’s Day
Happy Father’s Day!
These obligatory celebrations — Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and the lamentable trail of unsuccessful Hallmark efforts to expand the constellation of honorees (Grandparents’ Day! Secretary’s Day! Boss’s Day!?Evil Stepparent Day!) — were pointedly not designed with same-sex parents in mind. At one extreme is the fury-inducing story of an elementary school teacher who [...]
Comments Welcome
It turns out (to my surprise) that no one was able to comment on posts until just recently. Now you can do so without logging in.1 The comment feature just “went live” and already there are several provocative comments; feel free to join in (or not).
This may also be a good time to pause briefly [...]