LIVING
AS CHILDREN OF THE LIGHT
Once you were darkness,
but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light – for the fruit of
the light is found in all that is good and right and true. Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of
darkness, but instead expose them. For
it is shameful even to mention what such people do secretly; but everything
exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is
light. Therefore it says, “Sleeper,
awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”
~ Ephesians 5:8-14
This week’s opening quotation is
from the second lesson for the Fourth Sunday in Lent, just about two weeks
ago. As I heard these words read during
the church service, I could not help but think of recent coverage I had seen
regarding the latest round of “ag gag” bills, sometimes known as
anti-whistleblower laws, introduced in various state legislatures. These are bills that, in various forms, seek
to make it a crime to photograph or film farm animal operations without the
permission of the business owner. In
other words, these are laws aimed at ending undercover investigations of animal
abuse at factory farms. They aim to keep
those abuses “in the darkness.”
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Most recently, language was added to a bill in the Kentucky state legislature that would make it a misdemeanor for a person to gain access to a private farm under false pretenses and then film or photograph the operations without the landowner's consent. The penalty could be up to 90 days in jail and a $250 fine. As Mercy For Animals has observed, the extreme irony here is that this was added to a bill intended to improve Kentucky’s reputation regarding how it treats animals:
How's this for irony? "ABC News" reports that Kentucky's notorious ag-gag provision has been "snuck" into a bill that was originally supposed to raise animal welfare standards.House Bill 222, sponsored by Kentucky state representative Joni Jenkins, would eliminate the use of gas in animal shelters as a means of euthanasia. Jenkins told ABC: "Kentucky gets such a terrible rating about the way we deal with our animals. House Bill 222 was an attempt to raise this up a little bit."
But now an ag-gag provision has been added to HB 222 that would make it illegal to film inside farming operations, criminalizing undercover investigations.
Sadly, undercover investigation
after undercover investigation, year after year, reveals such extreme brutality
by those who handle these animals that criminal charges are often the result.[1] I have linked to just a few such recent
investigations in the footnotes, and I will let you click through for more
information as you will. Suffice it to
say in this space that abuses such as kicking and stomping on animals, throwing
them against walls, and beating them, violently slamming them into tiny
transport crates, and allowing sick or injured animals to slowly suffer and die
without veterinary care are all too common.
The Kentucky measure comes after
an investigation by the Humane Society of the United States’ investigation of a
hog factory in Kentucky and how it is dealing with an outbreak of porcine
epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV). NPR’scoverage of the investigation explains:
In this video, we learn what happens to the piglets at Iron Maiden Hog Farm in Owensboro, Ky., that succumbed to the virus: The animals' intestines are ground up and fed, as a "smoothie" — as HSUS dubs it — back to the sows, which could be their own mothers. (The exact size of the farm is unknown, but the barn shown in the video houses about 2,400 sows.)
Industry,
of course, defends the practice, noting that the virus is killing large numbers
of pigs and this is the best way to prevent it (the practice provides
“controlled exposure,” seeking to build up the immune systems of the pigs). As an HSUS representative explains, however,
“It seems obvious that confining pigs in such an environment that causes open
sores, extreme stress and filthy living conditions would only encourage the
spread of disease.” In other words,
another way to prevent the spread of the disease would be to house the animals
in sanitary conditions that allowed them healthful exercise and a degree of
contentment.[2]
The NPR story continues:
As for HSUS's allegations of general abuse of the sows at Iron Maiden, Brent Burchett, a spokesman for the Kentucky Livestock Coalition, told The Salt in an email: “I have personally toured this farm. ... After watching the video, I believe it does not reflect the values of the producer in question.”
Whether
or not it reflects the producer's values, it does (obviously) reflect its
practices. If there is something going
on here that is truly contrary to its values, one would think the producer
would want to know about it, so that it could make appropriate changes. Apparently, it prefers to stay in the
darkness.
Indeed, a company disclaimer
that cruelty is contrary to policy is the standard response to undercover
investigations. Yet, the abuses
continue. Investigations of Butterball facilities in North Carolina in
both 2011 and 2012 by Mercy For Animals showed no improvement in behavior.[3]
Beyond these specific abuses,
however, proponents of ag gag bills are also seeking to keep the inherent
cruelty of the intensive confinement systems that are at the heart of factory
farming in the dark. These are practices
that leave animals in filthy conditions, under extreme stress, with beaks or
tails or horns shorn, or tubes in their throats, or confined so they cannot
move. These practices, because they are
what factory farming is, clearly do reflect the values of the companies
that require them.
In any case, “HSUS says the
practice of feeding dead pigs to live pigs is illegal in the state of Kentucky
and may violate federal law, too.” So,
what is the industry and political response to the investigation? Is it to require practices more in keeping
with their “values?” Is it to hold hearings on practices at factory farms? Is it to hold industry accountable for
violations of law? No. It is to introduce legislation that would punish
not those who break the law and perpetrate cruelty, but those who seek to bring
such practices into the light.
Kentucky is hardly unique in
this response. Indeed, seeking to
silence those who shed light on the practices at factory farms appears to be
standard operating procedure.[4] In some cases, those who undertake these
investigations are labeled “terrorists.” [5] In a January 2014 blog post, Wayne Pacelle,
CEO of the Humane Society of the United States, reported that in 2013, HSUS
helped defeat ag gag laws in 11 states. According to the Animal Visuals website, as
of March 2014, there were ag gag bills pending in Kentucky, Arizona, and
Indiana, with laws actually passed in Idaho this year and in six other states
in previous years. The Atlantic had an excellent article on the
subject of ag gag laws in March 2012: The Ag Gag Laws: Hiding Factory Farm
Abuses From Public Scrutiny. That was more than two years ago and we
continue to fight these battles.
While all of this is certainly
alarming from public policy, food safety, legal, and constitutional standpoints
for any number of reasons, why do we care about it theologically? We care because, as the Atlantic puts it, these laws are “designed to stifle public debate
and keep consumers in the dark.” If they
are successful, we will be in the dark both practically, in terms of knowing
what we are buying, and theologically, in terms of supporting practices
displeasing to God. By contrast, as Paul
tells us in his letter to the Ephesians, we are to live as children of the
light. We are to “[t]ry to find out what
is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in
the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.” The ag gag laws are important theologically
for all the reasons that animal suffering is important theologically, as
discussed throughout this blog. If there
is any truth in scripture, then factory farming and the abuses that take place
on those “farms” are not “pleasing to the Lord.” Factory farming is a work of moral and
theological darkness and its proponents know that if a light shines on the
suffering of animals in these warehouses, both businesses and individuals will
be held to account. So they are working
very hard to keep those works in darkness, away from the light of public
scrutiny and the light of compassion. We
must work just as hard to oppose these unjust and harmful laws (“Sleeper,
awake!"), to “take no part” in factory farming, and to expose the cruelty
inherent in treating living creatures as widgets and profit centers.[6]
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Photo credit: Oil Lamp, By carrotmadman6 from Mauritius (Oil Lamp Uploaded by russavia) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
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Photo credit: Oil Lamp, By carrotmadman6 from Mauritius (Oil Lamp Uploaded by russavia) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
[1] See, e.g., Humane Society of the United States, “UndercoverInvestigation Documents Pig Abuse at Tyson Supplier,” May 8, 2012; Mercy For Animals, Butterball Abuse, “UndercoverInvestigation Exposes Shocking Cruelty . . . Again,” November 2012; Video, “An undercover investigation of Palmex Inc.,Elevages Perigord, and Aux Champs D’Elise, Canada’s three largest foie grasproduction facilities.”
[2]
Another NPR story, from January, on this same
disease notes that it is causing fear that the price of bacon will
increase. Because that’s what’s important here, apparently.
[3] Both investigations were
in North Carolina, but it is not clear to me whether they were at the same
facility.
[4] See, for example, The Arkansas Journal of Social Change and
Public Service, “’Ag Gag’ Laws: Industry Trumps the First Amendment,”
October 25, 2012.
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