Pet Sins

New York attorney Jeff Delott recently handled an emotionally charged custody case. When his client separated from her roommate, the two became embroiled in a fight over who would keep their pride and joy. In the end, a settlement handed Delott’s client a five-figure victory and a modicum of emotional relief. Yet this custody fight had nothing to do with a child. Instead, it was over a cat.¹ Bizarrely, such animal custody battles are not unusual. In courtrooms across America, judges are being forced to decide who gets Spot, Ralph, and Fluffy when pet-loving couples divorce or separate. According to Delott, “We’re seeing statutory laws, administrative laws, even tax laws that say animals are no longer property.”²

Surveys reveal that treating pets like children is not a behavior isolated to divorce cases. A full 83% of American pet owners call themselves their animal’s mommy or daddy rather than its owner.³ Such attitudes have increased the demand for canine behaviorists and even prescription medication to combat doggie Attention Deficit Disorder.⁴ In fact, the $43.4 billion expended annually on pet care exceeds the total spent on children’s toys.⁵ More than 60% of dog owners say they kiss their pets,⁶ while thousands throw four-legged birthday parties, fill Christmas stockings with dog biscuits, and dress animals in seasonally appropriate garb.

Of course, pets can be a gift from God, a source of companionship and even comfort. Indeed, most people cherish memories of a family pet, but many pet owners have lost their perspective, projecting humanity on their animals. All the anthropomorphism led the founder of one Southern California pet-sitting company to remark, “[D]ogs need to be treated like … well, dogs. And, pardon me, for such a politically unpopular statement!”⁷

At the same time, the number of children per household has declined,⁸ and many view kids as an inconvenience. For instance, a Canadian writer suggested that worldwide adoption of China’s population-control policy—which includes forced sterilization and abortion—is the answer to environmental problems. “A planetary law, such as China’s one-child policy, is the only way to reverse the disastrous global birthrate currently,” wrote National Post editor-at-large Diane Francis.⁹ Since the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973, the nation has seen more than 50 million infants murdered.¹⁰ And according to the Centers for Disease Control, there are roughly 240 abortions for every 1,000 live births.¹¹

Meanwhile, many express moral outrage at anyone who would harm an animal—even for legitimate purposes. The liberal activist group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) called eating meat a “Holocaust on your plate” and sponsored an exhibit in New York juxtaposing farm and animal slaughterhouse scenes with photos of Nazi death camps in Europe. “Just as the Nazis tried to ‘dehumanize’ Jews by forcing them to live in filthy, crowded conditions, tearing children away from their mothers, and killing them in assembly-line fashion, animals on today’s factory farms are stripped of all that is enjoyable and natural to them and treated as nothing more than meat-, egg-, and milk-producing ‘machines,’” a PETA news release said.¹²

PETA also objected to KFC’s¹³ supposedly inhumane treatment of chickens, producing a video on the subject intended to create public outcry. Among the complaints were that the company kills the birds and puts them in boiling water.¹⁴

What happened to so skew humanity’s moral compass that it treats animals like children and children like animals? Confronting the situation of his day, the early Church Father Clement of Alexandria wrote, “Although keeping parrots [and other pets], the [pagans] do not adopt the orphan child. Rather, they [kill their unwanted] children… Yet, they take up the young of birds!”¹⁵ Equally guilty are those today who value animals over venerable humanity.

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