The animal-use protest industry group, Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), took another Hollywood victim when it converted the sexy Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting of Big Bang Theory fame to its cause. Sweeting joins the emotive crowd of urbanites who oppose Canadian seal hunts. Now our big neighbor to the North has a long-history of first class wildlife management. In fact, Canada’s management of its natural resources (which includes wildlife) could be considered better than the management … [Read more...]
Fur and the No-Need Argument
Animal rights activists and so-called animal protectionists regularly argue that the public shouldn’t buy or wear fur because it is no longer needed. Fur may have been necessary in the olden days, they concede, but for modern, civilized, and presumably technologically advanced humans, fur is a cruel and gratuitous clothing choice. The puritanical nature of the argument can be seen easily by reading sample letters created by The Humane Society of the United States, a prominent animal-rights … [Read more...]
Lions, Babies, and Moral Outrage
Properly aligned morals requires that weightier matters deserve more care and justify greater umbrage when violated. If one wanted a classic example of the upending of the moral hierarchy, one need look only at the juxtaposition of two stories, Planned Parenthood’s harvesting of baby parts and the killing of Cecil, a lion in Zimbabwe. Note the irony in how the two events are discussed. First, the dentist claims that he thought the hunt was legal. So if we take his reported comments at face … [Read more...]
Jesus and Environmental Sin
The Patriarch of Rome, Pope Francis, recently published a highly anticipated Encyclical Letter on the environment entitled “Laudato Si: On Care for our Common Home” Much attention has been spent on the Patriarch’s view that climate change is at least partly the fault of human activity (para 23). But I would like to focus on a statement made in paragraph 8, in which the Pope quotes Patriarch Bartholomew who said “inasmuch as we all generate small ecological damage,” we are called to acknowledge … [Read more...]
The Cost of an Animal Protectionists Agenda
Ideologies have financial costs. One such ideology is exemplified by the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Wild Horse and Burro Program. In 1971, Congress banned the hunting of wild horses and burros on public land. The genesis of the movement stemmed from the work of Velma B. Johnston who was upset with the manner in which people captured and used wild horses for commercial purposes. Unfortunately, when people confuse abuse with use and therefore ban human use of animals, bad things often … [Read more...]
Marriage and Environmentalism: Are They Related?
Many Christian environmentalists fail to fully appreciate how the Bible connects environmental degradation not to how many trees we cut down or to over population but to how we treat our neighbors (Jer 12:4; 23:10; Hos 4:3). In other words, while contemporary Christian environmentalists focus on the MPG of the car you are driving or whether you are avoiding beef, a Biblical environmentalist would ask, “How are you treating your neighbor?”. So is the Biblical perspective just the result of people … [Read more...]
