Christian Vegetarian Association Blog - Animal-Based Foods Come from Misery


	CVA BLOG

Animal-Based Foods Come from Misery
April 1, 2013

Welcome to the weekly CVA blog! In it you will find famous quotes, news and commentaries.

The Exploitation of God’s Animals: A Social Justice Issue

Famous Quote: Brigid Brophy, “Unlived Life—A Manifesto Against Factory Farming.”

The Shameful Defending of Tail-Docking

Bible verse: Genesis 9:2-4

Attempt to Keep Factory Farm Practices Hidden

This Week’s Video: Father Frank Mann’s Awakening to Compassion for Animals

1. The Exploitation of God’s Animals: A Social Justice Issue

Paul Graham, writer of the daily vegan food blog www.eatingveganinvegas.tumblr.com, explains why the liberation of animals from human victimization is a social issue. He takes the reader through a trip through history highlighting some of the major social justice issues that were once ignored and ridiculed but later where embraced. Graham believes the time has come for human rights.

Please visit Being Vegan -- This is a Social Justice Issue:
http://lasvegas.informermg.com/2013/03/02/being-vegan-this-is-a-social-justice-issue/

Of course the victimization of animals is a social justice issue. God’s animals have been endowed with instinct and needs, and the capacity to feel pain and joy. To prevent them from living their lives fully, from exercising their instincts and needs and from living their lives free of exploitation invariably raises ethical and spiritual issues than cannot be swept under the rug any longer.

2. This Week’s Famous Quote

Whenever people say, ‘We mustn’t be sentimental,’ you can take it that they are about to do something cruel. And if they add, ‘We must be realistic,” they mean they are going to make money from it.”

~ Brigid Brophy, Unlived Life—A Manifesto Against Factory Farming.

3. The Shameful Defending of Tail-Docking

Colorado’s legislature held a hearing last week on a bill to ban the cruel tail-docking of dairy cows. It’s important to notice that although the American Veterinary Medical Association opposes this practice, dairy farmers still shamefully defend it. Please visit Colo. House committee delays vote on cow tail bill

Tail-docking is cruel, unnecessary and shameful. It only shows that dairy farmers are willing to go to great lengths to make-up for the unsanitary conditions in which cows are kept. Consuming dairy means supporting an industry that is unsustainable, cruel and unhealthy for humans. Dairy does not help us honor our bodies or the rest of God’s Creation.

4. This Week’s Bible Verse

(RSV) Genesis 9:2-4

The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every bird of the air, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea; into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.”

This passage neither commands meat eating nor indicates that the practice is God’s ideal. Indeed, eating meat came with a curse—animals would no longer be humanity’s friends: “The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast…” (Gen. 9:2). While eating meat was not prohibited, it represented a complete break from God’s ideal of animals and humans living peacefully together, as depicted in Eden and by the prophets.

5. Attempt to Keep Factory Farm Practices Hidden

“Ag-gag” bills are the new tactic of the animal agriculture industry is using in order to hide from the public the egregious animal cruelty that goes on a daily basis in factory farms across the country. Ag-gag bills seek to criminalize the act of documenting what goes on in factory farms so whistleblowers are punished instead of those who victimize farmed animals.

Please visit Beat Your Meat: Factory Farmers Want to Choke Their Chickens in Private:
http://m.vice.com/read/meat-the-press

If these factory farms had nothing to hide, then they would have nothing to fear. The tireless work of animal advocates who risk much to expose the cruelty in factory farms and slaughterhouses have made it possible for many of us to learn why consuming animal products does not to accord with Jesus' teachings of compassion and mercy.

6. This Week’s Video: Father Frank Mann’s Awakening to Compassion for Animals

Watch the touching story of a priest, Father Frank Mann, who awakens to the plight of God’s animals and chooses to live a life of hope, healing and justice.

Please watch Father Frank Mann's Awakening to Compassion for Animals

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