Same-sex marriage and caged chickens: Human freedom, animal rights

Posted on November 11, 2008 by ari

Category: Activism, Animals, Family, Human Rights, Oppression, Politics, Queer

I just read a piece on the Huffington Post, Shaun Jacob Halper’s Why Some Americans Don’t Have Reason to Celebrate, and found it interesting from an animal rights perspective. It reads in part:

This past Election Tuesday, Californians turned out in droves to recognize the rights of caged-chickens while denying the rights of gays and lesbians to marry. Passing Prop 2 and Prop 8, Californians secured a chicken’s right to “extend its wings, lie down, stand up, and turn around” in confinement, while revoking basic democratic rights from gays; rights like equal protection under the law, the ability to pursue happiness, and the freedom to worship religion without state interference (that’s right, there are Judeo-Christian confessions that view same-sex marriage as sacred). In short, Californians sympathize with chickens but not with gays.

Isn’t he minimizing the plight of chickens, and saying one oppression is worse (more worthy of concern) than another? I agree it’s tragically sad that so many Californian voters have made such an unjust and oppressive choice. But why compare it to their vote to treat innocent chickens with just a little more compassion, as if that decision is somehow silly or less important?
I too am queer, and I too want my partnership, my family, to be legally recognized and not discriminated against. But though I’m oppressed as a queer woman, I’ve got all kinds of privilege that make my life about a million times better and more free than that of almost any animal of almost any other species. The way that we treat domesticated animals like chickens is absolutely unconscionable – we literally bring them into the world in huge numbers, expressly to suffer and die for our benefit. That voters have made a tiny step toward treating living, feeling animals with just a little more kindness is a beautiful thing. I don’t begrudge my feathered sisters their political win. Maybe the folks who care so much about chickens will one day open their hearts a little wider and extend some kindness to queer folks as well. Denigrating their love of animals will not help them to open their hearts.
Maybe Halper is on his way to this realization already, though he’s yet to see the connection between the oppression of non-human animals and the oppression of human animals. He writes,

It is the gay community who has failed to build coalitions with other groups. Wake-up call to gay leadership: We must form institutional alliances with other minority communities and start supporting each others interests. We are not going to see these groups support our right to marry if we do not make an active effort to support them as well.

We need to start seeing allies everywhere, and treating everyone as our brothers and sisters in a universal struggle for peace and justice. Maybe some of those we treat with respect and love don’t have the power or capability to give us anything in return – but it’s not about reciprocity, it’s about doing the right thing by our neighbors. A win for the chickens is a win for us all.

Related posts:

  1. Ari’s Early Animal Rights Influences
  2. Should Animals Be Doing More For The Animal Rights Movement?
  3. Countering the badness with peace and love: No on Prop. 8, yes to equality
  4. Nim Chimpsky, humans, and the animal family
  5. “Chickens are decent people.” – George Carlin

Comments

One Response to “Same-sex marriage and caged chickens: Human freedom, animal rights”

  1. Peter
    November 12th, 2008 @ 10:38 pm

    The gay community has not always failed to build coalitions with other groups, according to:
    CHICAGO – Coretta Scott King, speaking four days before the 30th anniversary of her husband’s assassination, said Tuesday the civil rights leader’s memory demanded a strong stand for gay and lesbian rights.
    “I still hear people say that I should not be talking about the rights of lesbian and gay people and I should stick to the issue of racial justice,” she said. “But I hasten to remind them that Martin Luther King Jr. said, ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’”
    “I appeal to everyone who believes in Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream to make room at the table of brother- and sisterhood for lesbian and gay people,” she said.
    “Gays and lesbians stood up for civil rights in Montgomery (and) Selma (Alabama), in Albany, Georgia, and St. Augustine, Florida, and many other campaigns of the civil rights movement,” King said.
    She said she saluted the contributions “of these courageous men and women” who fought “for my freedom at a time when they could find few voices for their own.”
    http://www.motherjones.com/riff_blog/archives/2008/11/10737_the_hidden_came.html

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