PETA goes too far in Moncks Corner
Monks take higher road by avoiding needless conflict with protestors
By: Paul Bowers
Posted: 1/14/08 - Pleading the fifth
Since the folks at PETA are so keen on the equality of creatures, they surely won't mind this reference to the animal kingdom: They have made real equine posteriors of themselves. Again.
Their latest targets were the monks of Mepkin Abbey, a Cistercian Trappist monastery in Moncks Corner. Since January 2007, the Problematic Endorsers of Tofu and Asininity harassed the peaceful men of faith with regard to the egg-laying operation that provided their income.
The chickens, they claimed, were being exploited and abused.
In a video posted on PETA's Web site, amidst grainy black and white footage of vacantly clucking chickens, a self-proclaimed "investigator" hassles monks as they make their daily rounds in the henhouse.
"The way these men of God act toward His creatures flies in the face of Christian mercy and compassion for the weak," quivers the narrator. Problem: The only times Jesus mentioned animals he was using them as metaphors for humans. He was neither a literal shepherd nor a literal mother hen.
Christianity is a religion for people, not for chickens. The way the video narrator manipulates Christ's teachings should be taken as an affront to anyone who takes his or her faith seriously.
The activists criticized the monks for keeping their hens in cages, implying that free-range is the only humane storage option. However, as Mepkin's Abbot Stanislaus Gumula explained in a Post & Courier article, "cages provide hens protection from predators, soil-borne diseases and diseases that are caused from walking in litter or waste."
They have also wrung their hands over the fact that the chickens' beak tips are clipped, a practice meant to keep them from drawing blood when they peck each other and that can be no less painful than human circumcision.We should be so lucky if human disarmament was that easy.
After enduring months of disruptive protests and legal actions, the simple men at Mepkin Abbey decided in mid-December to shut down their henhouse. Picket signs and video cameras, they decided, have no place in a cloister intended for serenity.
The worst part is that the Mepkin operation complied with industry standards - a fact PETA does not dispute. If the animal lovers genuinely wanted to bring about change, why didn't they go after a corporation with real sway in the business?
Because they are cowards. Rather than pursue their ideological goals in earnest, they decided to beleaguer a defenseless order of holy men whose stated desire is to be left alone. The Moncks Corner coop closing is no victory for self-righteous hen huggers-it is a concession by wiser men who took the high road from senseless conflict.