Link Archive

I am creating a link archive, both for the convenience of readers who might see a link to an interesting article on this blog but don't want to slog through months of posts to find it, and for me, because I often stumble across interesting articles elsewhere and then never find them again. I'm sure I'll find a better way of doing this eventually, but for now, I'm just going to update this post whenever I add new links. Enjoy.

Humanism
Why I am not a Humanist by Nigel Sinnott
Why I am not a Humanist by Luke Muehlhauser

Animal Rights
Sentience and Pain in Invertebrates by the Department of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences

LGBT
"Majority" does not equal "Morality" by Emma

My friends are the BEST. Exhibit A.

My friend Emma just wrote a brilliant post in response to New York's recent decision to deny equal rights to gay citizens. She argues, as many other people have, that a majority should not be able to vote on the rights of a minority. This is the most articulate and passionate defense of that argument that I've ever read, and you should all head right over to her blog and read it yourselves. My favorite part:

I hate that the battle for gay rights has to be fought in senate halls and courtrooms at all. It's ridiculous that civil rights groups have to be on the offense in a fight for nothing more than equality. These are issues that shouldn't be legislated at all, and they are certainly not issues that the majority is qualified to vote on. I hate that people who claim to defend 'freedom' want it to be clear that they're only defending freedom as they define it--and their definition says, "My freedom depends on restricting your freedom."

Freedom has to be universal in order for it to be freedom. Gay marriage does not take any freedom away from straight couples, or from the institution of marriage itself* (certainly it can't damage it anymore than our 50% divorce rate does). And for the love of God, just because more than 50% of people who voted think something does not make it RIGHT.

You rock, Emma.