This morning my wife decided to brighten my day by reading me an article from the newspaper. Here’s the headline “Bronx Zoo’s Happy the elephant is unlawfully imprisoned, lawsuit claims.” Now, the headline alone made me bark out a laugh. As she read the article, I thought she was making this up. Alas, when I googled “Happy the elephant” it took me right to the article. (read it for yourself here)
Think of the implications. Here’s how Happy is described, “She doesn’t belong to a social group. Her autonomy is thwarted daily. This has got to stop,” according to Steven M. Wise, founder of the Nonhuman Rights Project, filing a lawsuit against the Bronx Zoo. Wise says the Zoo is denying her “common law right to bodily liberty.”
Here’s the thing.
In a world where an elephant is treated by an activist group with more respect and dignity than how the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary treated a well respected, acting judge nominated for a seat on the Supreme Court… it would be funny, if it were not so tragically sad.
Think about the elephant’s name. Happy. She is a 47-year-old elephant, captured in the wild, brought to the Zoo in 1977. From everything I’ve read besides this one article, animals are animals, and humans are humans. When we attribute “human” rights to animals, have we become nothing more than animals ourselves?
Genesis 1:26-27
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
Do you see what the authoritative word of God says? Let “them” (mankind) rule over all the animals of the earth. This fundamentally says, animals do not have human rights… they are not human, they are animals. Does this mean we treat them inhumanely? NO! They are God’s creatures and we are accountable to God for how we treat them.
However, there’s more to scripture than just what God says about animals. God gives instructions about how we treat each other as humans. Listen to the simplicity in this statement. Jesus commands it. Jesus demands it.
Luke 6:31
Treat others the same way you want them to treat you.Luke 6:37
Do not judge, and you will not be judged; and do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; pardon, and you will be pardoned.
It just seems to me our world at large, and our nation in general, and our government in particular, and the Democratic party specifically, has either forgotten these words, or never read them with any intention of obeying them.
How ridiculous that our country is caught up in such battle stances over this supreme court nominee. How sad that so many can’t see the markers and signs of a well-orchestrated attack on one good man, while his attackers are simply seeking their own hold on power and influence. How frightening to think of what our future holds if they are successful.
That an animal rights activist should have any airtime, or print space, in light of the supernatural and eternal battles going on right now in our government makes about as much sense as … the FBI doing yet another investigation on an already vetted and qualified candidate before being confirmed to the Supreme Court. It’s just dumb. It makes no sense at all.
Somebody ought to say something. Oh wait. You can. On Tuesday, November 6th, you can. Get up off your backside, go to the voting booth, and cast your ballot for someone who stands for truth instead of charades. You want something to change? Then get out and do something.
Be Happy. Vote.
As I was saying... 