It's Dennis Prager time again

In an excellent article -- part IV in his series about the importance of Judeo-Christian values, Dennis Prager tackles those who make animal rights equal to those of human rights. In the course of this analysis, he says the follow, which I thought merited repetition:

Belief in human-animal equivalence inevitably follows the death of Judeo-Christian values, and it serves not so much to elevate animal worth as to reduce human worth. Those who oppose vivisection and believe it is immoral to kill animals for any reason, including eating, should reflect on this: While there are strong links between cruelty to animals and cruelty to humans, there are no links between kindness to animals and kindness to humans. Kindness to animals has no effect on a person's treatment of people. The Nazis, the cruelest group in modern history, were also the most pro-animal rights group prior to the contemporary period. They outlawed experimentation on animals and made legal experimentation on human beings.

I am highly opposed to gratuitous cruelty to animals. As I noted in an earlier post expressing relief about the lobsters in the pot (apparently their nervous systems don't feel pain), I try hard to buy meat that has been humanely slaughtered -- but I still eat meat. And I'm not planning on eating any humans soon. I love dogs, but they are not people. I will say, though, that before I had children, I did consider my dogs my "children" (although I'd like to think I was never extreme in that belief). It was having actual children that helped me understand the true difference between humans and animals -- and how infinitely superior a developing child is to either a puppy or a grown dog. I rather wonder, therefore, how many of the radical PETA activists are parents. I suspect that a lot of them have taken the energy that goes to creating, protecting, loving and raising children, and channeled that into animals. UPDATE: ~rich, at Beef Always Wins, has also commented about Prager's latest column.