Compassion For All Beings
I had to bite my tongue when I read this:
“it’s frightening that people show more compassion for tomorrow’s dinner than for the chef,”
I wanted to scream. Because “in the oppression olympics, non-human animals win, paws down.”
It’s a shame Prop 8 wasn’t defeated, but that’s got NOTHING to do with the measly little bit of extra room some animals will get in 2015 in their factory farm cages before they’re cruelly slaughtered and eaten by people who have the option to choose otherwise and whose only valid reason for eating animals is that animal flesh tastes good to some people.
Prop 2 is a step in the right direction, but it’s only an inch. We’ve got MILES more to go. Prop 2 isn’t some great gesture of compassion; it’s an extremely modest animal welfare reform. All it does is let animals turn around in their tiny cages. It’s PATHETIC that the majority of humans aren’t willing to do more for animals.
Does anyone really want to pretend that Californians who voted for Prop 2 and Prop 8 “care more” about animals than people? Is the newly granted privilege of some animals to stand up in their cages truly a sign that people have more compassion for animals than people? Is the right to marry the person you love even close to as basic a right as the right to not live in one’s own filth and the excrement of one’s neighbors? Really?
GET REAL.
And by the way, this group of people who voted for Prop 2 and Prop 8 are a small segment of the population. The majority of animal people lean to the left, not the right. If you want to see real progressive change in the US, it behooves you to alienate and make enemies with animal people. As another pro-animal, progressive writer, Seema Rupani, wrote:
“The movement against Prop 8 is a powerful, unstoppable force. Hundreds of thousands of people have been out in the streets these last few days, myself included. But negative references to Prop 2’s victory are diverting attention away from the issue at hand, and are not going to help us overturn Prop 8. We’re all in this fight for justice together, let’s do it right.”
We’re often on the same team. There’s no reason to attack animal advocates when trying to gain rights for the LGBTQ community. Attack the root source of the problem: anti-gay people, not pro-animal people. Stop attacking vegans and other animal people.
GET HONEST.
Get real. Get honest. Get vegan.
Live your values. Stop eating animals. It’s not kind, it’s not fair, it’s not right.
that pissed me off too when i read that. one of my facebook friends posted that, knowing that i am a big supporter of prop2. wasn’t sure if that was a stab at me. i don’t even know what’s the right way to convince these ppl. it seems like anything i say comes off as militant.
My sister, who lives in Sacramento, voted for Prop 2 and against Prop 8…after much urging from this veg*n and GLBT ally, natch. (Because she only sporadically votes, not because she eats meat or hates GLBT people.)
And what’s with this idea that compassion is like a finite pie that you have to save up to share with only the hungriest of the lot? As my views regarding non-human animals have evolved, my views on issues involving human animals have become more progressive, as well. An obvious example is the death penalty: because I’ve come to a place where I support a policy of non-aggression and respect for life, I can no longer support state-sanctioned murder, regardless of the crime or how much the criminal may “deserve” to be put to death.
So there
~ Recent blog post: Goodbye, my sweet pit bull girl. ~
The way I figure it, crudely, the majority of those who voted yes on prop 2 also voted no on prop 8. Kinda stands together, that kind of thinking. So that means (I admit, it’s crude) that about 14% of those who voted yes on prop 2 also voted yes on prop 8. Meaning there are born-again Christians and others who care about animal conditions - not exactly a huge surprise - but whose religion says no on the marriage.
In other words, it isn’t California in general that “put animals ahead of people”. what it means is that many fundamentalists and others are compassionate. They can’t get past the same-sex marriage idea for whatever reason but it isn’t that hard to see the cruelty in factory farming.
As others here have said, it isn’t a matter of one or the other, and it isn’t as if the two are in any way related.
Incidentally, black people voted disproportionately for prop 8. I have not figured that out and I don’t particularly like the explanations I have heard.
~ Recent blog post: Compassion For All Beings ~
I don’t see how it is anti-human to be pro-animal. After all, the conditions in factory farms turn the people who work there into monsters. If factory farming were abolished, it would be helping people, too. Slaughterhouse workers are ofen abusive to their spouses and have run-ins with the law. How is this good for humans?
Correction: Prop 2 won’t take effect until 2015. And I completely agree, this is inches but we have miles to go!
I was for Prop 2 and against Prop 8 but I also find this reaction from some of those against Prop 8 horribly upsetting. There is no comparison. Isaac Bashevis Singer put it much better than I could when he said,”In their behavior toward creatures, all men are Nazis. Human beings see oppression vividly when they’re the victims. Otherwise they victimize blindly and without a thought.”
Regarding 2015: Thank you. I will update the post.
Why don’t people assume we express the same compassion for the caged animal and the chef, at least in terms of his personal life? I mean, it makes sense to say that if I am more concerned about suffering, then I would like to see it reduced period, not just for an arbitrary group.
I for one don’t get how living conditions for animals and gay marriage have an inverse correlation (i.e. when one goes up, the other goes down), but hey, it’s not like I’ve taken a zillion research and statistics classes. I mean, usually to prove a relationship like that you need some data, not just an ASSumption, but I guess in California we can just throw the scientific method right out the window. Maybe one of these people could explain it.
~ Recent blog post: "Compassion For All Beings" ~