An animal welfare measure designed to improve the treatment of pigs
failed in the House of Lords in February. The ex-head of the Church of
England, the former archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, exercised
his Christian compassion and voted to block the Bill which would have
outlawed tail docking and teeth cutting. As the country's biggest
landowner, it sits comfortably alongside the church's refusal to ban
hunting on the land it controls.
Take almost any religion, look carefully at its original teachings on
the treatment of animals and you'll find they contain a clear call to be
vegetarian or vegan. Then look at the interpretation that men (and it
usually is men) put on those teachings and you will see how hypocrisy
was born.
From the Spring 1998 edition of Viva! Life - journal of
Vegetarians' International Voice for Animals. Reproduced with Thanks.
