Accidental Blogger

My friend and former roomate, Justin, recently started a blog ("More Cowbell").  It reminds me of Accidental Blogger on the days when we are not all ranting about George W. Bush, in that a number of interesting topics are discussed.

What I like about it is that Justin has completed one year of medical school at (The) Ohio State University–much like with Ruchira and her science background, he brings a different perspective than my own as an English/philosophy major and to-be law student at the University of Minnesota.  Justin self-identifies as a conservative, but not of the crazy "I’m Dick Cheney and I will shoot a 78-year-old man in the face because he looks like a small, wingless, pen-raised quail-tard" variety.  What does this mean?  That he’s on the right side of important issues, such as global human rights–or more recently, the nonprotection of gay rights in the New York courts:

On Thursday, the Supreme Court of the State of New York rejected claims
stating that a domestic relations law interpreted to allow only
opposite-sex couples to marry violated the New York constitution and
the federal right to due process and guarantee of equality. The court’s
leading opinion was that children should be reared with a mother and a
father and nothing requires the state to give marriage licenses to
same-sex couples. This is a strong blow to the pursuit of gay rights in
America.

While I have several grievances with this decision, I
want to concentrate on the argument that same-sex couples are not as
capable of rearing children as are opposite-sex couples. The American
Academy of Pediatrics recently released research results indicating
that this is not the case;
sexual orientation alone does not determine if someone is capable of
being a good parent, and sexual orientation does not determine the
success of a couple in raising children.

I am especially
distraught that New York of all places would reject gay marriages. Gov.
Pataki further supported the decision of the New York Supreme Court.
Legislation is coming up in Washington and California. Originally, the
campaign for legalization of gay marriage was supposed to be an updraft
in raising awareness for improving gay rights among the public; the
push has certainly raised awareness of gay rights, but also has
hindered the push for improvement of gay rights.

It is a popular
notion in public policy that, oftentimes, the side of a debate with the
simplest argument is the one that wins out. Unfortunately, the LGBT
community has the more complex argument going. It has research
statistics and logical discourse explaining the importance of granting
gay rights and equality, whereas the conservative community has Bible
thumpers, who are loud and simple and shout their claims from the
hilltop. Hopefully, as the push distills itself further, the LBGT
community will be able to have its argument heard more clearly by a
public that does not want to listen, and will have more victories soon.

(Ruchira, I hope you don’t mind that I’ve done a bit of other-blog-promotion in this post.  I’d have just linked to and quoted from his post on why gay people are also capable of being good "family people," but this way seemed better!)