Savory Dog BBQ and Sweet, Sweet Pluralism

You already know we here at Reason love cloned puppies. But do we love them enough to eat them?

Animal lovers in New Zealand want to make it illegal for people to eat their pets, after a Tongan family killed and barbequed their pet dog.

The Taufa family killed their pet staffordshire bull terrier Ripper and then invited friends round for a barbeque. Lupi Taufa says it's common practice in her homeland Tonga. "Dog, horse, we eat it in Tonga. It's good food for us," she said.

Derek Haddy works for the SPCA, New Zealand's equivalent of the RSPCA. "I find it quite disturbing that somebody would kill a pet and then eat it. I'm not OK with that, but unfortunately the law allows you to do it," he said. The SPCA says people eating their pets happens more often than society realises.

Little blurbs like this one from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation are an uncomfortable reminder of the swaths of modern political life still predicated on the yuck factor. While it's possible to take a rational position against dog eating (just as one might take such a position against cow or chicken eating)—dogs are ethically relevant beings in Peter Singer's expanding circle, the habit of killing living things makes men less virtuous, etc.—that's not what this story is about. An accurate summary of brief is: "Dog eating? Ew. Let's make it illegal."

In my view, the same dynamic can be observed in gay marriage debate. Reasoned arguments exist, but they are give force by a body politic that is mildly grossed out by gay sex. A fair assessment? Discuss.

Or just talk about what dog BBQ would taste like. Whichever.

Via Reason contributor Jacob Grier, who adds: "Libertarian purity test time!"