How is HSUS using religion to promote animal rights?
Their framing of the issue is that they are providing a resource for people who want to understand what their faith tradition says regarding food and faith. In reality, what they are doing is using very sophisticated, persuasive techniques. They have discovered ways to selectively use the Bible, the Koran and the Torah to amplify the guilt of consumers who purchase and consume products produced by confinement animal agriculture. The essence of their argument is this, “We are not asking you to stop eating meat, we are asking you to help the lives of animals a little bit.” Is it working? HSUS has been very successful in getting people to think about the religious issues of animals. The biggest example is California Proposition 2, where they used churches whose denominations were opposed to confinement agriculture to hold debates. Proposition 2 passed overwhelmingly in a landslide. The egg industry lost. The bottom line is they are very astute at tailoring arguments to consumers who eithe
