fuckyeahgenderstudies:

kimberbatch:

fuckyeahgenderstudies:

Today in Anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim politics…

The Dutch Parliament has passed a bill banning the slaughter of livestock without stunning it first, removing an exemption that has allowed Jews and Muslims to butcher animals according to their centuries-old dietary rules.

If enacted and enforced, religious groups say observant Jews and Muslims would have to import meat from abroad, stop eating it altogether, or leave the Netherlands.

I still don’t think that this has anything to do with religion. The bill was introduced by the Party for the Animals with the sole intention of reducing animal suffering.

Don’t think i’m being facetious here, but humans are animals, too. Such a ban would likely increase the suffering of Jews and Muslims in the Netherlands a great deal—

a) by increasing the cost of living for those groups and those groups alone by necessitating the importation of appropriate meat and/or forcing them to switch to a non-meat diet;

b) by issuing a de facto “lump it or leave” order to Dutch Muslims and Jews—potentially driving into poverty or out of the country those who do not have the resources to switch to imported meat or a “pescatarian” diet;

c) by suggesting that Jews and Muslims are second-class citizens who deserve/should expect to be treated in a discriminatory fashion. 

How is this reducing them to second-class citizens when the post states that it is “removing an exemption”? They are just removing a passage that allows people to subvert animal cruelty laws (I can’t think of a better way of describing it, though I admit that phrase gives the false impression that it is done nefariously) simply because of their belief systems. In a secular country, no religion, be it Christianity, Judaism, Islam or a cult that started yesterday, should be given privileges over the rest of the population.