PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk rather famously once said, “A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy”, but she was absolutely wrong. The truth is that a rat is vermin, and a pig could be dinner. A dog might be a boy’s best friend, but they are obviously different species, rather easy to tell apart. Don't get me wrong...I love my dogs, very much. They are my furry babies. Truthfully, I wouldn’t even think twice about risking my own life by running into traffic to save one of them from an oncoming car. In fact, there’s precedent for my saying so. Not long ago I foolishly ran onto a major highway near my house and nearly got myself killed, trying to save someone else’s dog that had escaped from under their fence. The story had a happy ending that day. They don’t always end that way. We both were lucky, the dog and me. I was acting purely on altruistic instinct, a natural reaction that a guy like Jerry Coyne might mistake for goodness. Nevertheless, if the choice is between saving either a dog or a child, the human life comes first in my mind. That’s also an instinctive decision, a no-brainer. In my world, God gave mankind dominion over all other animals. That means we have a tremendous responsibility to act as good stewards. In the world I prefer, it’s okay to kill a cow or chicken--as long as you eat it. It’s even okay to make clothing from the animal’s hide, so nothing is wasted. While doing so, we should most certainly give thanks to its Creator for the sacrifice of the animal for food and clothing, for the life we used to help sustain ours. However, in … [Read more...]