Culture Is No Defense for Cruelty

May 18, 2011
By Wayne Pacelle

Through the years, I’ve heard many flimsy arguments from the apologists for animal abuse, and among the most persistent has been an appeal to cultural prerogative or tradition – in short, that the conduct in question is an expression of the “culture” of a particular nationality, community, ethnicity or race, and therefore, it should somehow be treated as sacrosanct. The bullfighters in Spain invoke culture as a defense for the staged stabbing or slaughter of… Read More >