Breed Specific Laws are Immoral
A lot has been written about bully breed bans recently, mostly focusing on the facts and figures that show these dogs are no more inherently dangerous than any other large breed dog. What is lost in this discussion is the (im)morality of laws that seek to paint an entire group with the same broad strokes, rather than focus on the individual to be regulated.
As children our parents tells us that it is wrong to judge a book by its cover. Breed specific laws do just that, including the innocent family pet among a “class” of dangerous dogs merely because of an accident of birth.
Prejudice has a long, rich history in human civilization. Recent examples would include America’s own moral failing of slavery and associated Jim Crow laws that sought to restrict true citizenship for African-Americans even after fighting a war to end our “peculiar institution.” Nazi Germany would be another example, where Jews, artists, homosexuals and intellectuals were rounded up and killed merely for their inclusion in disfavored groups.
Oppressors always focus on dehumanizing their victims as a way to allow them to treat them inhumanely and unjustly; easier still with animals, I imagine. Gandhi said that “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” I wonder what it says about our society that we would so readily condemn to death innocent family pets along with the guilty without so much as a thought about their individuality.
Certainly, we are unique in the animal kingdom, having dominion over our flock. But dominion comes with responsibility – the charge to treat well and fairly those in our care. Breed-specific laws are an abdication of this duty.
The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. dreamed of a Nation where his four little girls were judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. Breed-specific laws upend this equation, classifying dogs as criminals because of their “predominate characteristics.”
The debate over breed specific laws requires us to choose sides; the middle ground of breed specific ownership restrictions is not too terribly different from, and certainly no more fair than, the Poll Tax or Literacy Test of the Reconstruction era. So, one can either stand on the bridge with Bull Connor and the forces of hate, ignorance, fear, prejudice and discrimination or march alongside the enlightened few pit bull Freedom Riders. Either course has consequences, but I know where I come down.
We are killing man’s best friend, and a little piece of our humanity along with them, because of our own moral blindness. God forgive us.
A lot has been written about bully breed bans recently, mostly focusing on the facts and figures that show these dogs are no more inherently dangerous than any other large breed dog. What is lost in this discussion is the (im)morality of laws that seek to paint an entire group with the same broad strokes, rather than focus on the individual to be regulated.
As children our parents tells us that it is wrong to judge a book by its cover. Breed specific laws do just that, including the innocent family pet among a “class” of dangerous dogs merely because of an accident of birth.
Prejudice has a long, rich history in human civilization. Recent examples would include America’s own moral failing of slavery and associated Jim Crow laws that sought to restrict true citizenship for African-Americans even after fighting a war to end our “peculiar institution.” Nazi Germany would be another example, where Jews, artists, homosexuals and intellectuals were rounded up and killed merely for their inclusion in disfavored groups.
Oppressors always focus on dehumanizing their victims as a way to allow them to treat them inhumanely and unjustly; easier still with animals, I imagine. Gandhi said that “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” I wonder what it says about our society that we would so readily condemn to death innocent family pets along with the guilty without so much as a thought about their individuality.
Certainly, we are unique in the animal kingdom, having dominion over our flock. But dominion comes with responsibility – the charge to treat well and fairly those in our care. Breed-specific laws are an abdication of this duty.
The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. dreamed of a Nation where his four little girls were judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. Breed-specific laws upend this equation, classifying dogs as criminals because of their “predominate characteristics.”
The debate over breed specific laws requires us to choose sides; the middle ground of breed specific ownership restrictions is not too terribly different from, and certainly no more fair than, the Poll Tax or Literacy Test of the Reconstruction era. So, one can either stand on the bridge with Bull Connor and the forces of hate, ignorance, fear, prejudice and discrimination or march alongside the enlightened few pit bull Freedom Riders. Either course has consequences, but I know where I come down.
We are killing man’s best friend, and a little piece of our humanity along with them, because of our own moral blindness. God forgive us.
posted by Bob at 11:14 AM
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