Agenda for a New America
Part One
The Politics of Vegetarianism
By Vasu Murti
Chapter 17 - More Voices Calling for Justice

In a paper presented before the Conference on Creation Theology and
Environmental Ethics at the World Council of Churches in Annecy,
France in September, 1988, Dr. Tom Regan similarly expressed moral
opposition to discrimination based upon genetic differences:

"...biological differences inside the species Homo sapiens do not
justify radically different treatment among those individuals, humans
who differ biologically (for example, in terms of sex, or skin color,
or chromosome count). Why, then, should biological differences outside
our species count morally? If having one eye or deformed limbs do not
disqualify a human being from moral consideration equal to that given
to those humans who are more fortunate, how can it be rational to
disqualify a rat or a wolf from equal moral consideration because,
unlike us, they have paws and a tail?"

Dr. Regan concluded:

"...the whole fabric of Christian agape is woven from the threads of
sacrificial acts. To abstain...from eating animals, therefore,
although it is not the end-all, can be the begin-all of our
conscientious effort to journey back to (or toward) Eden, can be one
way (among others) to re-establish or create that relationship to the
earth which, if Genesis 1 is to be trusted, was part of God's original
hopes for and plans in creation.

"It is the integrity of this creation we seek to understand and aspire
to honor. In the choice of our food, I believe, we see...a small but
not unimportant part of both the challenge and the promise of
Christianity and animal rights."

In an editorial that appeared on Christmas Day, 1988, Washington Post
columnist Coleman McCarthy, a prominent Catholic writer and a
vegetarian observed: "A long raised but rarely answered question is
this: If it was God's plan for Christ to be born among animals, why
have most Christian theologians denied the value and rights of
animals? Why no theology of the peaceable kingdom?... Animals in the
stable at Bethlehem were a vision of the peaceable kingdom. Among
theology's mysteries, this ought to be the easiest to fathom.

In a 1989 article entitled, "Re-examining the Christian Scriptures,"
Rick Dunkerly of Christ Lutheran Church concludes, "...the
Bible-believing Christian, should, of all people, be on the frontline
in the struggle for animal welfare and rights. We who are Christians
should be treating the animal creation now as it will be treated then,
at Christ's second coming. It will not now be perfect, but it must be
substantial, otherwise we have missed our calling, and we grieve the
One we call 'Lord', who was born in a stable surrounded by animals
simply because He chose it that way." Dunkerly teaches Bible studies
at his home Church and is actively involved in animal rescue projects.

In 1992, members of Los Angeles' First Unitarian Church agreed to
serve vegetarian meals at the church's weekly Sunday lunch. Their
decision was made as a protest against animal cruelty and the
environmental damage caused by the livestock industry.

The realization that meat is an unnecessary luxury, resulting in
inequities in the world food supply has prompted religious leaders in
different Christian denominations to call on their members to abstain
from meat on certain days of the week. Paul Moore, Jr., the Episcopal
Bishop of the Diocese of New York, made such an appeal in a November,
1974 pastoral letter calling for the observance of "meatless
Wednesdays." A similar appeal had previously been issued by Cardinal
Cooke, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York. The Reverend Eugene
Carson Blake, former head of the World Council of Churches and founder
of Bread for the World, has encouraged everyone in his organization to
abstain from eating meat on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

Father Thomas Berry, a Catholic priest, author, and founder of the
Riverdale Center of Religious Research in New York, wrote in 1987 that
"vegetarianism is a way of life that we should all move toward for
economic survival, physical well-being, and spiritual integrity."

"Is this not the fast I have chosen? To loosen the chains of
wickedness, to undo the bonds of oppression, and to let the oppressed
go free? Is it not to share thy bread with the hungry, sheltering the
oppressed and the homeless? Clothing the naked when you see them,
and not turning your back on your own." - Isaiah 58:6-8

The Reverend Marc Wessels, Executive Director of the International
Network for Religion and Animals made these Observations on Earth Day
1990:

"It is a fact that no significant social reform has yet taken place in
this country without the voice of the religious community being heard.
The endeavors of the abolition of slavery; the women's suffrage
movement; the emergence of the pacifist tradition during World War I;
the struggles to support civil rights, labor unions, and migrant farm
workers; and the anti-nuclear and peace movements have all succeeded
in part because of the power and support of organized religion. Such
authority and energy is required by individual Christians and the
institutional church today if the liberation of animals is to become a
reality."

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress on earth," wrote
Gandhi, "can be judged by the way its animals are treated...I hold
that the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to
protection by man from the cruelty of man." Abraham Lincoln said, "I
care not for a man's religion whose dog or cat is not the better for
it." Abraham Lincoln also said, "I am in favor of animal rights as
well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being."

At a rally in San Francisco protesting the use of animals in medical
research, Alameda County supervisor John George said, "My people were
the first laboratory animals in America." Black Americans suffered at
the hands of research scientists just as animals continue to do today.

In 1968, civil rights leader Dick Gregory compared humanity's
treatment of animals with the conditions of America's inner cities:

"Animals and humans suffer and die alike. If you had on kill your own
hog before you ate it, most likely you would not be able to do it. To
hear the hog scream, to see the blood spill, to see the baby being
taken away from its momma, and to see the look of death in the animals
eye would turn your stomach. So you get the man at the packing house
to do the killing for you.

"In like manner, if the wealthy aristocrats who are perpetrating
conditions in the ghetto actually heard the screams of ghetto
suffering, or saw the slow death of hungry little kids, or witnessed
the strangulation of manhood and dignity, they could not continue the
killing. But the wealthy are protected from such horror...If you can
justify killing to eat meat, you can justify the conditions of the
ghetto. I cannot justify either one."

Gregory credits the Judeo-Christian ethic and the teachings of Dr
Martin Luther King, Jr., with having caused him to become a
vegetarian. In 1973, he drew a connection between vegetarianism and
nonviolent civil disobedience:

"...the philosophy of nonviolence, which I learned from Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. during my involvement in the civil rights movement
was first responsible for my change in diet. I became a vegetarian in
1965. I had been a participant in all of the 'major' and most of the
'minor' civil rights demonstrations of the early sixties, including
the March on Washington and the Selma to Montgomery March.

"Under the leadership of Dr. King, I became totally committed to
nonviolence, and I was convinced that nonviolence meant opposition to
killing in any form. I felt the commandment 'Thou shalt not kill'
applied to human beings not only in their dealings with each
other--war, lynching, assassination, murder and the like-- but in
their practice of killing animals for food or sport. Animals and
humans suffer and die alike...violence causes the same pain, the same
spilling of blood, the same stench of death, the same arrogant, cruel
and brutal taking of life."

In a 1979 interview, Gregory explained, "I didn't become a vegetarian
for health reasons; I became a vegetarian strictly for moral
reasons...Vegetarianism will definitely become a people's movement."
When asked if humans will ultimately have to answer to a Supreme Being
for their exploitation of animals, Gregory replied, "I think we answer
for that every time we go to the hospital with cancer and other
diseases."

Gregory also expressed the opinion that the plight of the poor will
improve as humans cease to slaughter animals: "I would say that the
treatment of animals has something to do with the treatment of people.
The Europeans have always regarded their slaves and the people they
have colonialized as animals." Since the 1980s, Gregory has been
involved in the anti-drug campaign.

In biology, Hoyle and Wickramasinghe calculated the probability of
proteins forming from the random interaction of amino acids--the
building blocks of Life. They found the odds were one out of ten to
the 40,000 power. Given these extreme odds, it seems difficult to
imagine the self- organization of matter without the deliberate
intervention of some kind of higher power(s) or intelligence(s).

All life is thus precious and sacred. Nobel Prize winner, Dr. Francis
Crick has admitted, "the origin of life appears at the moment to be
almost a miracle." Organized religion is just beginning to understand
that the "sanctity of life" includes more than just the human species.

courtesy of http://www.all-creatures.org/article...-polveg17.html