What on earth is going on in Denmark? They’ve been making the news for all the wrong reasons. The other week it was an unwanted/surplus giraffe that was purportedly offered a new home in several different international locations, but ended up being ‘culled’ and fed to lions in front of tourists and small children!
This week, Denmark is banning the halal and kosher slaughter of animals saying that animal rights take precedence over religious traditions. Well, that sounds kind of fair enough to me. As it stands, Denmark requires animals to be stunned before slaughter, but there has been a long standing loophole (very likely a similar loophole exists in many countries), where animals can be slaughtered while conscious, if religious traditions dictates it be so. Animal activists have been lobbying for a long time to stop the Islamic, halal, and Jewish, kosher, methods of slaughtering conscious animals, and it seems they have finally gotten a foothold. However, it seems many commenters are saying these laws are less about animal welfare and are largely being introduced to be deliberately anti-Muslim and anti-Semite to interfere with the religious freedom of those minority groups. Personally, I think… yes, many of us eat animals and they are an integral part of the food chain, but there is no need for them dying in fear and panic because your 2500 year old Torah, or your 1600 year old Koran, say they should… it’s the post-modern/technological era we are living in, and it’s about time everyone got used to that.
ON THE OTHER HAND… I think where the hell does Denmark get off saying they are all interested in animal welfare and don’t want to see animals slaughtered by inhumane means when animal brothels are legal in Denmark! That’s right, the law in Denmark is fairly lenient and open when it comes to interspecies intercourse and it is LEGAL to profit from pimping your pets to paying punters. I mean, the rights of animals maybe come before religious freedoms, but they should definitely come before unusual lifestyle choices, shouldn’t they?! So screwed up. Generally speaking, I think most of us feel that bestiality is not all that okay, and especially not in a situation where animals (incapable of giving informed consent), may be restrained and repeatedly abused for financial gain!
For the record, animal brothels are also legal in Norway and Germany… where oddly it is illegal to own animal pornography, but quite okay to roger Black Beauty so long as you meet the owner’s set fees! Apparently it’s turning into quite an international sex tourism industry, as people from countries with more stringent animal welfare controls decide to visit Germany and Denmark and avail themselves of these animal bordellos. It turns out that many proponents of the animal brothels feel that ‘mere concepts of morality have no business being law’. But if that is the case, and morality has no place in law, then should murder be taken off the books too… seeing the only reason it’s illegal to kill another human being is because society (very early on) deemed it immoral to do so. I’m gobsmacked.
Denmark – clean up your act. It’s well and truly time you instituted safe and regulated employment conditions and access to healthcare for your animal sex workers, before you bother legislating against kosher and halal slaughter!!! O_o
