We’ve all had to defend ourselves at one time or another. However, I find that I’m constantly defending myself on three things: first, why I’m still single, second, why I didn’t take the Bar Exam, and third, why I’m a vegetarian. I find all three questions equally annoying, but none enrage me more than when another person is lambasted for being a vegetarian or vegan.
I had dinner at my parents’ house tonight and my mom brought up that she was listening to Trivisonno (ick) on the radio today. Apparently there is some guy running for Congress against Dennis Kucinich (he shall remain nameless only because he is so unimportant to even waste my time looking up his name) and he said something along the lines of “I can guarantee that when I am in office, I will NOT become a vegan.” My response? “Fuck you, no-name.” My mom said if she had known it was going to upset me that much, she wouldn’t have mentioned it. Well, yes, it does upset me. For several reasons which I will vent about now.
First, I am so sick and tired of people looking at me like I’m an alien when they find out I’m a vegetarian. The realization always follows with an incredulous “why?” or “wow, really?” like it would have been more acceptable had I told them I was into midget porn and toejam. If I were to live in California or New York City or someplace, dare I say, more sophisticated than the Midwest, no one would bat an eyelash at my lifestyle choice. But I’ve found in my nearly thirty years of living here that people aren’t as open-minded as they are in other places.
Ideas are not always popular, but it doesn’t make them weird or wrong. There was a time when abolitionists were going to ruin this country. When suffragettes were unholy. When Civil Rights leaders were assassinated. When interracial marriage was illegal. But all of these things changed because those who believed in their cause fought until things changed. Sometimes they were killed in the process. Because change doesn’t come easy to people. Humans fear what is unknown. I get it. But he who lives in fear, doesn’t live at all. It’s why some day we will look back and add “gays weren’t allowed to marry” to that list. So vegetarianism or veganism may be a different idea for some, but it doesn't make it wrong.
The second thing I am upset about is that douchebag no-name finds it completely acceptable (and funny?) to use his opponent’s personal diet choices as fuel for his political fire. It’s completely unacceptable to politically bash someone because of their race, religion, or sexual orientation or bring their kids into it because it’s WRONG to do that. But it’s acceptable to bash them because of their personal dietary lifestyle? I don’t get it? His not eating animals or animal by-products somehow makes him completely unqualified to be the voice of his people? I don’t think so, you no-name buffoon.
Third, I can’t stand those who attack others for their choices when they’re uneducated on or apathetic of the issue. There are many reasons to convert to vegetarianism or veganism… health, moral, environmental, and political. Try opening a book, you ignorant fuck. Factory farming is not only the biggest contributor to global warming, but the waste emitted from the animals is being dumped into our ecosystem – and into our air and drinking water. Factory farmed animals are produced by the billions –there are four times as many cows in the U.S. than there are people. Those cows (and other animals) are shot up with hormones and chemicals that are then ingested by humans. One recent study showed that many American girls as young as seven years old have developed breasts and have begun menstruating due to the massive amount of hormones they ingest through animal products. That's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to health issues. And I won’t even get started on the unbelievable and inhumane cruelty these animals endure.
My favorite Beatle and fellow vegetarian once said “If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian.” I would like to think that would be true, but the fact of the matter is, people will always choose to eat meat. And if you do, that is your decision. You have a right to choose because this is AMERICA, Jack! I don’t push my beliefs on you. I respect your decision. Please respect mine and the decisions of my fellow vegetarians. We don’t deserve to be treated like circus freaks for it.
Speaking of fellow vegetarians… besides for McCartney and the other three Beatles… Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Isaac Newton, R.W. Emerson, Thomas Edison, Voltaire, Albert Einstein, Vincent van Gogh, Emily Dickinson, Franz Kafka, Hank Aaron, Charles Darwin, George Bernard Shaw, Albert Schweitzer, Gandhi, Leonardo da Vinci… history's most important philosophers, writers, artists, inventors, geniuses and heroes… were they all wrong too?
"I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other.... "~Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854
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