On January 3rd 2020 a UK court decided Ethical Veganism can qualify as a philosophical belief protected under law https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-50981359
Jordi Casamitjana believes he was sacked for being vegan; his former employer cites gross misconduct. Before the case could be heard the status of veganism as a belief system had to be established.
Some people are purely dietary vegans - they don't eat animal products for health reasons for example - but most are, to some extent, ethical vegans - they don't eat animal products because they believe it is wrong to do so, and avoid animal products in all aspects of their life. To even the more relaxed of ethical vegans it is blinkin' obvious that veganism is a philosophy to live by, not a 'diet' or a 'fad' or a 'cult' http://theconversation.com/veganism-has-always-been-more-about-living-an-ethical-life-than-just-avoiding-meat-and-dairy-129307
Short version:
What makes YOUR belief more important than MINE?! Basically, that mindset is the entire problem with religion.
Full-length version:
Each human being lives their life by some sort of moral code, even the seemingly immoral will (usually) hold some kind of belief that they are entitled to live as they do. For many, the moral code is rooted in religion - even those whose code is founded on the laws of the land and the social norms of their era can trace those fundamentals back to religious doctrine.
I have seen a bunch of deeply unpleasant comments about this but the remarks here, by people who've declared themselves to be deeply spiritual or allied to a certain faith particularly appal me (https://www.themonastery.org/blog/veganism-ruled-protected-class-in-uk-comparable-to-religious-belief?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_content=Agriculture+Shock&utm_campaign=January+8%2C++2020)
The comment from Annie Macleod begins:
I have no problem with some vegans considering themselves 'ethical vegans'
and having it recognized as a religion.
That is, as long as they don't try to impose their religion on anyone else,
just as Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam etc
should not try to impose their beliefs on others.
Right, let me nit-pick this a moment... All faiths impose their beliefs on others. Religions are, at their core, a set of rules by which to live and why most societies have or had a religion as their foundation. By setting laws we impose one set of core values on others.
Most religions also seek new members - from Sunday schools and Boy Scouts, to evangelism and propaganda - various methods are used to bring in new people. In this way a belief system maintains its hold on a society.
And most of us accept this fairly willingly. This blog will focus on 'Thou Shalt Not Kill' - whether we adhere to a faith or not, most people will accept that killing another is fundamentally wrong. We impose this belief on others. Sometimes we might hold a particular view on abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment or war that is at odds with someone else's interpretation of 'Thou Shalt Not Kill' - and we will argue our point, often heatedly, regardless of which side of the line we stand. This is an important issue most take exceedingly seriously. Our respect for the right of others to hold their own belief is sorely tried.
One key point of Veganism is that 'Thou Shalt Not Kill' applies to all life, not just humans. Vegans often term this mindset as 'speciesism' and liken it to past times where Christians saw infidels or whites saw blacks or men saw women as 'other' - not entitled to the same rights and privileges. Vegans see all sentient life as fundamentally equal; Vegans see this as no different to telling you not to kill and eat your neighbour. The difference is most people don't even consider eating their neighbour if it's a human...if it's a cow, on the other hand...
Carnists (people who believe it is their right or even obligation to eat animals) often say 'you live by your principles, I'll live by mine' and this 'live and let live' argument is really galling to Vegans. The point is that YOU can live AND let ANIMALS live too.
Lolol what a bunch of hogwash! Being vegan is now like a religion in England?
Are they mad? There is no such thing as a Vegan or Vegetarian and never will be.
It's a medical fact that the area around your face sheds dead skin cells
when you sleep. Now these cells get on your pillow and blankets
and when you move they get stirred up. And you still have to breathe as such you ARE breathing in dead skin cells,
which are considered meat; and your body is digesting them.
So unless you sleep with a vacuum over your face to suck up the skin cells,
then you DO eat meat no matter if you want to acknowledge it or not.
Jeez, dude - how DUMB are you? Who, exactly, considers naturally shed skin cells as 'meat'?! Meat is defined as the flesh of animals, flesh is defined as a soft substance consisting of muscle and fat...not as its individual constituent cells! Whatevz. If you are so stupid as to believe that inhaling your own dead skin cells is equivalent to a cheeseburger then you deserve to be killed and eaten by a peckish neighbour.
A vegan mother might well devour her placenta after giving birth as a means to ward off post-natal depression. This is 'flesh' but no animal has died / been killed to provide it. This is effectively eating your own flesh and has no ethical problem tied to it. In the same way, breastfeeding is vegan because it is your milk to do with as you wish (including wet-nursing / milk donation) but a cow's milk is not yours to take. The whole problem with meat-eating is the taking of a life, the causing of pain & suffering to assuage your own desires.
Some Vegans will even eat meat if it is naturally occurring roadkill or meat that has been thrown away and will otherwise rot. This is because their interpretation of their moral code is that they are not taking a life (directly or by supporting the industry). And before you start - Jews are protected whether or not they keep kosher, Muslims are protected for wearing hijabs despite it being a cultural and not a religious requirement - faith is protected regardless of the individual's interpretation of their faith.
Honestly though, this guy's opinion gets on my tits - how can you possibly suppose that a moral argument against killing something to eat its corpse can ever be nullified by inhaling dead skin cells?! Ludicrous! Just as a vegan is no less vegan if there's a fly in their soup - no one killed that fly, its presence is a tragic accident. The choices and deliberate actions we make are what matter.
You might imagine that religious people would be the most understanding of the rights of others to have their belief systems protected but is seems this is not the case. Many wars have been fought on a 'my-religion-is-better-than-yours' principle but bashing on veganism?! Given that many faiths have dietary restrictions in their texts it seems a bit cheeky to say the very least.
People seem very insulted by the idea of veganism having the same status as a religion...and very much unable to differentiate between faith and philosophy!
Veganism is not a religion, it has pretty much one rule which is virtually the same as the medical profession's 'first do no harm', it does not require you to pray or to build special places to worship vegetables, it is never going to encourage you to go to war with anyone, it doesn't tell you who you can or can't marry...in fact, it doesn't impact how you live your life at all beyond not harming animals to do so.
Jordi Casamitjana, by the sounds of it, is a bit of an extreme vegan - apparently he won't use buses in case bugs die on the windshield. Most vegans use public transport, drive, live perfectly ordinary lives virtually indistinguishable from anyone else's...they choose not to eat meat, dairy and a host of other animal products; they choose not to use wool, silk and leather; they choose kindness over convenience.
Yet people call Veganism a cult because their precious cheeseburgers are threatened?! And the endless asking of "but what about bacon?" like strips of salted smoked pig flesh are godly. Honestly, y'all will believe in some supreme, omnipotent yet curiously absent deity but not that animals have feelings.
People are too damn weird.
