Unable to gently persuade people to give up their hamburgers, chicken wings, and steaks, animal-rights zealots are once again trying to force a vegetarian diet on at least one segment of the population — Jews who keep kosher.
The Farm Animal Welfare Council, an organization established to advise the British government on animal welfare issues, is trying to outlaw kosher slaughter. Next month it will ask Parliament to require that all animals be mechanically stunned before slaughter. Jewish authorities there unanimously assert that animals stunned first cannot be considered kosher — and have clearly demonstrated that belief by walking out of a meeting with the intransigent Council.
Attempts by animal rights zealots to prohibit kosher meat are nothing new (and we’re not just talking about Hitler’s Germany). Years before they made national headlines by
amending Florida’s Constitution to include protection for pigs, the radicals at Farm Sanctuary decided it would be a swell idea to sue the California Department of Food and Agriculture in an attempt to ban kosher slaughter.
Never mind that kosher slaughter is designed to be merciful. That’s not really the point. The object is to force observant Jews to eat no meat at all.
No attack on religious practices by animal rights zealots would be complete without PETA’s Bruce Friedrich. His absurd “JesusVeg” website includes the following tip on how to get Jews to give up meat:
The kosher laws can be a potent force in the advocacy of vegetarianism. The ease with which Jews can remain kosher through vegetarianism and the “unkosherness” of the kosher meat industry are the two points activists will find most useful.
Of course, offending Jews is nothing new to the fanatics at PETA, whose utrageous roving exhibit comparing Holocaust victims to farm animals will be in Hartford, Connecticut tomorrow.
