"Compassion For All Beings"

From Vegan Soapbox. It's just a wonderful contribution to the discourse:

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 2010 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, you'd behoove yourself 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.

Having your relationship recognized by the state confers a kind of existentialist benefit upon the couple (because the other benefits (e.g., tax breaks, hospital visitation) are available in civil unions). Having this right removed is a tragedy. Marriage is an important institution in civil society for its civic component, among others. And allowing homosexuals the opportunity to participate in this institution follows from our understanding of "equality" and "freedom." I can't think of a valid reason for denying these individuals their chance at this kind of happiness. However, the harm experienced by the passage of Proposition 8 is abstract: the suffering isn't actual pain, but something different.

Proposition 2, on the other hand, is about real pain, hurt, torture, and unimaginable agony. There isn't an existentialist component here. Proposition 2 is meant to give a chicken the opportunity to not rub her skin raw on wire mesh because she is so tightly confined; her feet will no longer grow around the bottom of her wire cage because she will now have a little room to move around. Baby cows will now be able to turn around, and perhaps see the sun.     

Assuming the validity of oppressing one group as a means to challenge the validity of oppressing another, is bad reasoning and unethical. "Ism's" in any form (e.g., racism, sexism, speciesism) or the common argument, "They are just...," are simply different ways of being prejudiced.