Nick Kristoff has an interesting piece in today's NYTimes, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/12/opinion/kristof-is-an-egg-for-breakfast-worth-this.html?_r=1&hp decrying the treatment of chickens by "egg factories." (One of my own feeble gestures, presumably predictable by reference to my economic status and politics, is that I buy eggs of cage-free chickens and don't order veal.) So I'm interested in the reference to Article 20a of the Basic Law. What if a state really does try to protect all animals against cruel treatment, including chickens, cows, pigs, harvested fish, whales in captivity, etc.? Assuming that the practices of kosher slaughter are in fact less humane than they "need to be" (assuming that one continues to be non-vegetarian and therefore must support the raising and then killing of animals, birds, and fish for our own consumption), is there any dispositive reason for the state to accommodate a desire for kosher meat, even in an institutional setting that offers a presumptively healthy vegetarian option? I ask this as a genuine question, since I find myself genuinely perplexed by the issue.
sandy From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Claudia Haupt Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2012 12:43 PM To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: Re: Court upholds prison no-pork policy against EstablishmentClause challenge I wrote about this a while ago in Free Exercise of Religion and Animal Protection: A Comparative Perspective on Ritual Slaughter, 39 Geo. Wash. Int'l L. Rev. 839 (2007). The article includes a discussion of the 2002 German constitutional amendment that made animal protection a constitutional state objective in Article 20a of the Basic Law. -- Claudia E. Haupt Professorial Lecturer in Law George Washington University Law School 2000 H Street, NW Washington, DC 20052 202-994-8494<tel:202-994-8494> ceha...@law.gwu.edu<mailto:ceha...@law.gwu.edu> My new book: Religion-State Relations in the United States and Germany www.cambridge.org/9781107015821<http://www.cambridge.org/9781107015821> On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 1:25 PM, <hamilto...@aol.com<mailto:hamilto...@aol.com>> wrote: Chip is right, of course. But Eric's point requires a response. I don't I don't think PETA folks would appreciate having their sincere concerns about the humane treatment of animals traced to the Nazis. To say that humane treatment concerns are more often than not "pretext" and then to have as your example something out of the 1930s is singularly unpersuasive. Marci A. Hamilton Paul R. Verkuil Chair in Public Law Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law Yeshiva University 55 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10003 (212) 790-0215<tel:%28212%29%20790-0215> hamilto...@aol.com<mailto:hamilto...@aol.com> -----Original Message----- From: Eric Rassbach <erassb...@becketfund.org<mailto:erassb...@becketfund.org>> To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics <religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu<mailto:religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu>> Sent: Thu, Apr 12, 2012 1:14 pm Subject: RE: Court upholds prison no-pork policy against EstablishmentClause challenge Chip is right that the supposedly inhumane methods of kosher/halal slaughter (something US law defines as humane, btw) is one of the main public justifications for banning the practice. But as our brief in the New Zealand kosher slaughter ban case pointed out -- http://www.becketfund.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/NZ-kosher-brief-FINAL.pdf -- more often than not this is pretext. For example, this was the same justification the anti-Semites of the 1930s used for banning the practice in several European countries. As we point out in our brief, one of the first things the Nazis did upon taking power was to pass a law banning kosher slaughter, supposedly in order "to awaken and strengthen compassion as one of the highest moral values of the German people." I don't think it's too much of a stretch to guess that anti-Muslim sentiment may be a subterranean motivation for the humane practices argument in the Netherlands, France and elsewhere. The ironic part for me of the Mohr case was that my main experience of stand-alone prison pork bans is as a proposed "compromise" to settle kosher accommodation lawsuits. Of course pork bans don't work as a method of kosher accommodation, though prison administrators keep hoping that they do. In our now 6-year-old lawsuit against the Texas prison system (now on a return trip to the 5th Circuit), Texas at one point floated a pork ban as a solution, which only served to show that they didn't understand how kashrus works. Eric ________________________________________ From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu<mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu> [religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu<mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu>] On Behalf Of Ira Lupu [icl...@law.gwu.edu<mailto:icl...@law.gwu.edu>] Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2012 10:39 AM To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: Re: Court upholds prison no-pork policy against EstablishmentClause challenge I think that at least part of the objections in Europe to serving only halal meat in some restaurants involves objections to methods of halal animal slaughter which (like kosher slaughter) may not be consistent with European standards for humane treatment of animals in their use as food. "Halal only" means all diners are "complicit" in the that particular slaughtering process. On Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 11:08 PM, Friedman, Howard M. <howard.fried...@utoledo.edu<mailto:howard.fried...@utoledo.edu><mailto:howard.fried...@utoledo.edu<mailto:howard.fried...@utoledo.edu?>>> wrote: It is interesting to compare reactions in Europe to similar situations. In 2010, French politicians strongly criticized a restaurant chain that decided to serve only halal meat in 8 of its restaurants with a large Muslim clientele. Agriculture Minister Bruno Le Maire said: "When they remove all the pork from a restaurant open to the public, I think they fall into communalism, which is against the principles and the spirit of the French republic." See: http://religionclause.blogspot.com/2010/02/french-politicians-criticize-restaurant.html In 2007 in Britain, a primary school in Kingsgate attempted to accommodate religious needs of its growing Muslim student body by serving only Halal meat in its lunch menus. A number of parents objected, arguing that the school was forcing their children to to conform to "someone else's culture." See http://religionclause.blogspot.com/2007/02/british-parents-protest-halal-menus-in.html Howard Friedman messages to others. _______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu<mailto:Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu> To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
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