War of Rights: Animal Rights verses Religious Rights

War of Rights: Animal Rights verses Religious Rights

 

In a War of Rights who will win: Animal Rights—a new contender-- or Religious Rights—one of the oldest rights legally recognized? This question is being addressed worldwide and the legal implications of such an interest are resonating to the reaches of humankind. This article touches on the history and reasoning behind such a war of rights, as well as how current laws are being received by the public, and how the United States might deal with the issue when it reaches the Supreme Court by examining precedent cases.

 

I love food. I love to cook and I am especially talented in burning food. Be it pork, chicken, beef, the unknown mystery meat in the cafeteria, or even the occasional salad, I will eat it. Unfortunately, this is not the case for some people. During religious holidays people of the Muslim, Jewish, and other denominational faiths that practice eating kosher or halal meat have to pay great attention to the way the meat or the animal was treated during all times of its life. While this seems like a minor problem, like that of a person with milk or gluten allergies having to pay attention to what they eat, all over the world this has become a battle between rights. Any religion that is in the practice of halal or kosher meat, along with animal sacrifice is involved in the war of rights: animal rights or religious rights. Who trumps whom? Will animal rights overpower and suppress religious rights or will religious freedom rights remain one of the most supported rights in the world? When the legal decision is forced into the hands of the United States Supreme Court, it is the hope that religious rights will remain one of the best kept rights in the nation. To better understand how this issue will be handled in the future we can look at the history and reasons why laws banning these special meats are coming to the attention of the public, how these laws are being received within the public, and how these laws might be coming to American soil soon.

 

For centuries Jewish and Muslim religions have been practicing religious slaughter for the meats deemed acceptable to eat by their religion. Halal is the correct term for Muslim meats where the animal is killed by cutting through the jugular, drained of all blood and the testicles and bladder have been removed. This is done without stunning the animal while reciting a blessing over it. The Jewish meat called kosher is similar with some differences being that the nerves and certain fats

Proper way to sacrifice by butchering
 (by means of Jewish or Muslim religion)

must also be removed (Eardley, 2014).  So why is this becoming a problem in the eye of the public now if it has been practiced for centuries? With the growing number of animal rights activists and the fact that slaughter of animals is taking place, there was bound to be conflict. Activists are not only upset by the fact that slaughter is taking place but more importantly they address the fact that stunning before the slaughter is not enforced. The conflict arises then when animal rights to a humane and quick death is counteracted by these recommendations being against the religion of those who are sacrificing it (Mika, 2006). While one would hope that this was a true argument for the wellbeing of animals, there are studies proving that the banning of ritual slaughter is purely on the fact of growing unease of the religions partaking in it. Author Robert Delahunty defends this claim in his paper by sorting through Europe’s past, one of the countries currently banning such activities, and current views of the country while the Muslim faith grows (Delahunty, 2014). Europe has had one of the oldest laws protecting animal rights in religious slaughter. In 1979 Europe enacted the law called Convention for the Protection of Animals for Slaughter creating one of strictest law sets for animal wellbeing in the world. However, countries like Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland have banned ritual slaughter all together (Lerner & Mordechai, 2007). Switzerland even went as far as to ban imports of kosher meat for Jews. While it would be nice to claim the United States has not had to deal with this conflict of rights, this is simply not the case. The Supreme Court case of Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah (1993) where the city of Hialeah passed city ordinances in order to prevent ritual slaughter in effort to prevent the church practicing it from coming to their town is simple proof that this issue has already come to the legal attention of the justices (Randolph, 2014). With the growing number of animal activists, this topic will more than likely grow into the public’s constant attention begging for an answer leading to legal actions to be taken.

 

In some countries, like Europe, lawmakers have passed laws already making halal or kosher meat illegal. Because of these resulting laws being passed, these laws can be evaluated for the citizen’s responses as well as animal rights activists’ techniques. There are examples of absolute denial of religious rights, to a compromise situation, to even the full allowance of religious rights with few stipulations. All of these are influenced by the majority group that holds the most persuasive power, in some cases being the animal rights activists. An example of compromise is the laws in Australia and New Zealand where they have been able to reach compromise where the animal will either be stunned before being sacrificed or a professional supervision of an expert butcher where the kill will be clean, efficient and void of suffering (Bruce, 2011). Poland however has put a banned importation of halal and kosher meat as well as the sacrificial ceremonies; however, the law was overturned in December 2014 when it was declared unconstitutional (RT Questions More, 2014). This is not the same case for all countries though. Denmark banned kosher and halal meat as well the ceremonies, and there was little disagreement, that was until the government allowed for a

Marius, surplus giraffe

surplus giraffe to be shot in front of school children, butchered, and fed to the lion pride creating an outcry of hypocrisy (Withnall, 2014). Italy took their own path by creating an almost simplistic way of dealing with the entire situation. Have separate butchering shops for individuals of religion. In order to keep commerce at a steady rate, please animal activists and allow religious groups to keep their halal or kosher meat, Italy simply divided butcher shops between the groups and encourages those with special interests to go to the shops that support those interests (Cenci-Goga et al., 2013). While this does not fully satisfy animal rights activists, they will have the comfort in knowing that the shops that they shop at practice the methods they support. The same is true for Jewish and Muslim peoples. These are all examples of the varying levels of rivalry between the rights but the next important detail worthwhile of addressing would be how the laws were enacted in the first place. How had animal rights activists become influential? While author Marie Mika argues that organizations like PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) try to stay away from religious views, they may use moral shock to reach religious values instilling activism in not yet active activists (Mika, 2006). There are some activist groups that operate in the opposite way using religious sayings and ideals to campaign animal rights more frequently. However, as Peek and his colleagues discovered through their research, trying to pass evolution as the link between man and animal in order to instill a sense of religious moral obligation does not work too well on religious people as they were more likely to reject animal rights (Peek, Konty & Fraizer, 1997). This does not mean it does not work all the time. Mika goes on to share that ads depicting Jesus holding animals asking people to become vegetarian have been fairly successful (Mika, 2006). Some animal rights activists have seen success regardless of their methods, a clear example is the research being exhibited here: animal rights verses religious rights.

 

With laws being disputed world round, the issue of animal rights and religious rights has become a topic that the United States of America will eventually need to address. But there have been some Supreme Court cases that have established precedent already. By examining the ruling in the Sherbert v Verner (1963), Lemon v Kurtzman (1971), Employment Division v Smith (1990),and the case of Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v City of Hialeah (1993) an estimate of how the courts might view the situation in the future can be developed (Randolph, 2014; White, 1994). The earliest of the Supreme Court cases that are applicable to this concern is the Sherbert v Verner (1963) where a worker was fired for refusing to work on Saturday, which would have been against her religion; this case established the Sherbert Test. The Sherbert test is a test of the Establishment clause against government interest in a personal matter; it questions four key things: 1.) establishes if the person has a sincere religious belief and 2.) that the law imposed a burden on the individual, the next thing to consider is 3.) if the government has a compelling interest and 4.) if the government makes the law mandatory with enforcement it must be in the least restrictive means (White, 1994). In order for religious rights to win the battle against animal rights according to the Sherbert test, the individuals must prove that the government has overstepped their bounds of the Establishment Clause by imposing a burden in the most restrictive means. The next Supreme Court case would be the Employment Division v Smith (1990) more commonly referred to as the peyote case where two Native Americans used a drug according to their religious beliefs and were later fired for it; this case established the Smith test creating an exception to the Sherbert ruling. This exception was created under the title if the state law has been violated then the government has an interest and can overturn the religious freedom actions (White, 1994). For a religious right to conquer over animal rights, the individuals must be in a state that does not recognize animal rights legally. This is a more difficult precedent case to decide with because there are some states where animal rights are already held within legal boundaries and if the states develop those laws any further, religious rights just might lose. The Lemon Test was established from the Lemon v Kurtzman (1971) case to test the law in three steps. The first was the excessive involvement of the government, if the law inhibits or advances a religious practice, and if the purpose of the law has a secular purpose (non-religious purpose). So if the Lemon Test were to be applied to the religious rights verses the animal rights case it would be difficult because of the three prongs (Randolf, 2014). While the first two would easily be cleared as non-influential, the third prong would be the possible one to create a rift. Because animal rights is a secular purpose, the government could be okay to legislate such actions to a degree. But because this prong in the Lemon test might open criticism it is further complicated by contradicting the inhibition of religious practices. In the case of Hialeah (1993), the case was overturned as unconstitutional. But why? The city banned animal sacrifice, it has been seen that many other countries have already done this. But when the Supreme Court looked into the reasons why the ordinances were put into practice in the first place, they found that the city learned of a church practicing religious animal sacrifice was planning on establishing a church there. In effort to keep the church from coming they enacted the ordinances which broke the Lemon Test’s third prong: non-secular purpose (Randolf, 2014). The ordinances were declared unconstitutional and they were overturned. It can be seen that the cases that have already been set as precedents were difficult laws in themselves, it will be interesting to see how the Supreme Court chooses to rule on further animal rights verses religious rights in the future with precedent case rulings being fairly inconsistent.

 

Animal rights are important in providing ethical treatment of animals in the variety of ways that humans might keep them around for, but when animal rights overpower religious rights, there might be an all-out war. Religious rights are established in nearly every country in the world and held to high standards, but when legal decisions must be made, the decision of who trumps whom is a difficult one to make. To better understand how these decisions will be made in the future we looked at the history and reasons why laws banning religious meats such as halal and kosher exist, how the laws are being received by the public and how the laws might be handled when on American soil. The experiences those of Muslim, Jewish, or other denominational faiths that practice animal sacrifice are more complicated than what a person with a milk or gluten intolerance have to watch while shopping at their local grocery store. It is the hope that one day countries worldwide will be able to reach agreeable terms that will make both animal activists and religious parties satisfied without denying either one of them legal rights. I love food, but I am glad that my decision on what to eat in the cafeteria or cook for myself isn’t as difficult as the decision the United States Supreme Court will have to decide on if this topic ever reaches an interest here.