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Happy Cows, Unhappy People: The Rise of Animal 'Rights'
BREAK*POINT ^ | Monday, February 3, 2003 | BreakPoint with Charles Colson

Posted on 02/03/2003 3:58:00 AM PST by Bad~Rodeo

In case you haven’t noticed, animal rights militants have become increasingly active. For instance, last year the California Milk Advisory Board ran what has become known as the "happy cows" television ad. They featured singing, wisecracking dairy cows contentedly munching grass in bucolic bliss. Viewers loved them, but the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) sued, claiming the ads violated consumer protection laws. Why? Because they deceive consumers about the way cows actually live. (Note to PETA: Cows don’t really sing, either.)

PETA members also got upset over the "Chicken Challenge" at an Illinois casino, where customers were invited to play tic-tac-toe against chickens. PETA said the game "disrespected chickens."

In Phoenix, a teacher threatened to sic her classroom of six-year-olds on a seafood restaurant. She wanted the owner to stop its "cruel" practice of putting live beta fish on display in fish bowls. The fish were ultimately put up for adoption.

You have to laugh at stories like these. But the influence of animal rights advocates has been growing, their agenda is dangerous, and that’s no laughing matter. Americans and Europeans alike are passing laws that do more than just protect animals. In Germany, for example, last year a law was passed declaring that animals have the same rights as humans.

Now, some changes in how animals are treated on farms and in labs may be needed. But more than just humane concerns drive the modern animal rights movement. They have a serious agenda—one that challenges Christianity’s most fundamental doctrines.

The real reason they are opposed, for example, to killing animals or using them in medical research is that they don’t believe that there is any fundamental difference between animals and humans. The idea that humans are special in any way is called "speciesism," defined as a prejudice akin to racism and sexism. PETA’s Ingrid Newkirk even compares eating meat to the Nazi Holocaust and says that the animal rights movement is "at great odds" with Christian teaching. Indeed.

Ominously some animal rights activists carry their logic to extremes: that if it’s "murder" to kill chicken, for instance, it’s morally acceptable to stop the "murderer." In National Review Online, Wesley Smith writes about animal rights terrorists who employ "death threats, fire bombings, and violent assaults against those they accuse of abusing animals." For example, writes Smith, one such group, Animal Liberation Front, "posted a how-to-commit-arson manual on its website."

These people are serious—and dangerous in more ways than one. Charles Oliver of Reason magazine puts it well: "By placing chickens and Jews on the same ethical plane"—as Newkirk does—"animal rights activists may inadvertently make it easier for a future Hitler to herd millions of humans into gas chambers."

Oliver is right. The philosophy behind the animal rights agenda is an assault on human dignity. As Christians, we have a moral duty to respect the animal world as God’s handiwork, treating animals with "the mercy of our Maker," as Christian writer Matthew Scully writes in his new book, Dominion.

But mercy and respect for animals are completely different from rights for animals—and we should never confuse the two.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Front Page News; News/Current Events
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1 posted on 02/03/2003 3:58:00 AM PST by Bad~Rodeo
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To: All
Beef-flavored tofu anyone?
2 posted on 02/03/2003 4:08:17 AM PST by Bad~Rodeo
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To: Sungirl
Hooboy.
3 posted on 02/03/2003 4:09:49 AM PST by RedBloodedAmerican (God Bless President Bush)
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To: Bad~Rodeo
"In Germany, for example, last year a law was passed declaring that animals have the same rights as humans."

Now I understand why Germany is against the war on Iraq. All the animals in their country must have protested and threatened to fast.

Kidding aside, this is beyond the pale. These nuts are terrorists and need to be treated as such.
4 posted on 02/03/2003 4:13:35 AM PST by demkicker (I wanna kick some commie butt)
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To: CholeraJoe; dubyaismypresident; hobbes1
so who is going to break it to CJ that his sheep are not really the same as wimmen.....? ; )
5 posted on 02/03/2003 4:14:59 AM PST by xsmommy
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To: Bad~Rodeo; yall

Compliments I love beef. com


6 posted on 02/03/2003 4:19:25 AM PST by lodwick
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To: Bad~Rodeo
PETA members also got upset over the "Chicken Challenge" at an Illinois casino, where customers were invited to play tic-tac-toe against chickens. PETA said the game "disrespected chickens."

Chicken challenge. I think that's clever. Had it been a trick carried out by cats or dogs PETA wouldn't have cared, because they are pets.

7 posted on 02/03/2003 4:24:02 AM PST by HiTech RedNeck
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To: Bad~Rodeo
Oh, and what's a "Bad Rodeo." Something that doesn't come up to the standard of a good rodeo?
8 posted on 02/03/2003 4:27:08 AM PST by HiTech RedNeck
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To: Bad~Rodeo
In Germany, for example, last year a law was passed declaring that animals have the same rights as humans.

Reference anyone?

9 posted on 02/03/2003 4:32:50 AM PST by beavus
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To: Bad~Rodeo
I managed a packing plant for several years and we had to contend with these kooks on a regular basis. They would call and write, expressing their hatred towards those involved in the business.
10 posted on 02/03/2003 4:40:53 AM PST by Straight Vermonter (I don't believe in hyphenating Americans)
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To: HiTech RedNeck
Had it been a trick carried out by cats or dogs PETA wouldn't have cared, because they are pets.

Wrong. PETA and their ilk consider pets to be SLAVES.

11 posted on 02/03/2003 4:43:12 AM PST by Straight Vermonter (I don't believe in hyphenating Americans)
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To: Bad~Rodeo
This says it all:

Eat mor chikin!
12 posted on 02/03/2003 4:47:31 AM PST by graycamel (Cows sound like electric motors when they moo.)
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To: Bad~Rodeo
They have a serious agenda—one that challenges Christianity’s most fundamental doctrines.

This is the essential point of it. If not animal rights or environment they would push some other agenda (abortion?). But this does go against the "... multiply and subdue the earth" commandment.

These globalist forces know that Christianity must at least be co-opted into the coming "world religion", or destroyed. They figure the other religions will eventually be assimilated; as indeed mainstream or lukewarm Christianity will be. They may also be wrong about some Islamicsts.

13 posted on 02/03/2003 5:11:00 AM PST by banjo joe
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To: Straight Vermonter
This IS ludicrous. They do not know what it is to be owned by a cat.
14 posted on 02/03/2003 5:15:55 AM PST by HiTech RedNeck
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To: Straight Vermonter
This IS ludicrous. They do not know what it is to be owned by a cat. (The slave in this case walks on 2 feet)
15 posted on 02/03/2003 5:16:32 AM PST by HiTech RedNeck
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To: Bad~Rodeo
I really think that these PETA nuts have too many of the wrong kind of mushrooms in their diet. Disrespect for chickens?


MARK A SITY
http://www.logic101.net/
16 posted on 02/03/2003 6:04:40 AM PST by logic101.net
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To: Bad~Rodeo
"In Germany, for example, last year a law was passed declaring that animals have the same rights as humans." What a holy shit is posted here? It´s not true at all!! We´re the first nation saying in our constitution that protection of animals is a aim of our state, but not that animals and humans are equal. Art. 20a Basic Law excerpt: "The state protects in responsibility to future generations the natural ressources AND THE ANINMALS in the frames of our constitutional rights ..."
17 posted on 02/03/2003 6:48:07 AM PST by Michael81Dus (Proud to be German, but not to be represented by Gerhard "LOSER" Schröder)
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To: beavus
Wrong, look at #17.
18 posted on 02/03/2003 6:49:03 AM PST by Michael81Dus (Proud to be German, but not to be represented by Gerhard "LOSER" Schröder)
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To: demkicker
"These nuts.."

Who? Iraqis or Germans??
19 posted on 02/03/2003 6:50:08 AM PST by Michael81Dus (Proud to be German, but not to be represented by Gerhard "LOSER" Schröder)
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To: Michael81Dus
"The state protects in responsibility to future generations the natural ressources AND THE ANINMALS in the frames of our constitutional rights ..."

Are the German's going to put cats on trial for murdering birds and mice?

20 posted on 02/03/2003 6:55:42 AM PST by wi jd
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