Essays and Musings

I hope this will expand as I find the time to write down some of my, ahem, well-considered thoughts and opinions on a wide range of topics.

Charlie Howard Mainers and anyone who has read Stephen King's It know the story of Charlie Howard. Here I use Howard's murder to illustate the connection between hate speech and hate crimes. I wrote this commentary prior to the February, 1998, referendum in Maine which resulted in the repeal of the state's first law extending basic civil rights protections to people of all sexual orientations. It was published in the Bangor Daily News and the Mid-Maine Morning Sentinel.

The Relevance of the LGVMA One of the hats I currently wear is that of Secretary of the Lesbian and Gay Veterinary Medical Association. In the January 1, 1999, issue of the Journal of the AVMA, a Dr. John Parker of Novi, MI, wrote in to express his dismay that the news of LGVMA's annual meeting had been published in the Journal, since it was not a group aimed at "scientific advancement" and therefore irrelevant to the profession. He neglected to express any concern about other groups, such as the Association of Women Veterinarians or the Christian Veterinary Mission, who also have a less "scientific" bent and who have had news of their meetings regularly published in the Journal for years. Couldn't be homophobia, could it? At any rate, LGVMA allowed Dr. Tim Withers, current LGVMA President, to respond in the same issue, and several other letters were subsequently published in the Journal on the topic. This article is one I wrote for the Spring issue of the LGVMA newsletter, Good News, with my musings on the subject.

Creationism vs. Science This essay arose out of an e-mail I posted in October, 1999, to a listserv I subscribe to and a subsequent exchange with another member of the list who holds Creationist views. I did a little editing to combine the posts into one coherent body and condensed the responses I received into one line headers, but there have been very few changes from the original e-mail messages. I think it provides a pretty good outline of my beliefs on the topic.

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