RELIGION & ANIMALS
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1997:
The National Conference of Catholic Bishops Pro-Life
Committee on November 11 called for a return to meatless Fridays as a
token of opposition to abortion, human euthanasia, war, violence,
drugs, and other “attacks on human life and human dignity.” Perhaps
not noticing that three of the four ranking Catholics quoted in
Associated Press coverage spoke for eating fish instead, which causes at
least as much animal suffering, In Defense of Animals president Elliot
Katz on November 14 endorsed the proposal. Katz is Jewish.
The men of some Orthodox Jewish sects mark Yom
Kippur, the Day of Atonement, by swinging live chickens over
their heads. Reported Melissa McCord of Associated Press from Israel
on Yom Kippur 1997, “Many Jews, including those belonging to other
streams of Orthodoxy, reject the practice. Rabbis have ruled that cash
or even credit cards may be used in the atonement ritual,” which ends in
either the chicken or the money being given to the poor.