Michael Vick Is Getting Off Way Too Easily

I don’t know what I think of the notion of animal rights. The word “rights” s generally used is full of legal ramifications and implies acknowledgment of personhood. “Rights” are those freedoms and privileges granted to persons in a legal document, such as a constitution.

In this sense animals don’t have rights, per se, nor should they. Nevertheless I believe that animals are given a certain rightful status in the created order. They have a dignity by virtue of being made by God, and by virtue to the place they are given in the web of interdependent life. For that matter so do plants. Each thing is to be treated in keeping with the dignity it is given by its Creator.

By all accounts the Creator has a special place for his creatures. They are celebrated over and over in the Bible. As he looked upon the world teeming with his fruitful creatures he said that it was good.

Human beings have a unique place being created in the image of God. There is a dignity associated with that image bearing that does not devolve onto the other creatures.

Nevertheless human beings are given the special task of caring for creation, and for its creatures. The idea of dominion must be stripped of all human greed, perversion, violence, selfishness, and exploitation before we can arrive at its real meaning biblically speaking. We get a glimpse of what this unspoiled dominion looks like in Genesis two as God brings the various beasts before Adam and he names them. Naming is an aspect of dominion. The creatures in Genesis 2 are treated with the utmost honor and respect and dignity.

According to the biblical portrayal, it was only after the fall of man that both man and beasts were given “permission” to take of animal life for food, for the sake of survival in a broken and difficult world. I don’t mention that to bring up arguments about sin and fall, or about the biblical flood – only to affirm that it was only after the fall that dominion came to include the possibility of killing, and that for the sake of survival; (and perhaps sacrifice in worship, ala Abel). Killing for food and the temporally temporary killing for sacrifice resulted from sin and fall. Christians believe that the sacrificial role of killing of animals has been superseded by the sacrifice of Christ.

Even given the fall there is no place within dominion for wanton violence against animals. Indeed, human beings were made to be the protectors of the animal world. In time our superior intellectual capacities (combined sadly with our deep sinfulness) would give us the edge over the beasts, and the opportunity to exploit them as we choose. But such exploitation, out of greed, perversion, or love of violence, is simply not compatible with our calling to exercise dominion over God’s good creation, including its creatures.

There is something especially perverse about the mistreatment of that which is weaker, that which we were supposed to protect and care for, whether we are talking about children, human beings in a weakened and exploitable state, or animals. This is why we rightly react so viscerally to the use of animals such as dogs in "sports" like dogfighting, whereby we, ostensibly their protectors, kill the weaker, injured, or non competitive ones. It is simply a gross and obscene offense against creation, against God, against the rightful place these creatures are to have in our hearts, and against our basic calling as human beings.

For that reason I am somewhat dismayed that Michael Vick is going to get a break due to cutting a deal with prosecutors. For once I find myself agreeing more or less with PETA. He is getting off way too easily.

To the extent that dog fighting, cock fighting, or other forms of abuse of animals is pervasive in our culture, it reveals how sick and messed up and broken we truly are, and how bankrupt segments of our culture have become.

Just because the abuse of human beings is worse still does not make this offense against nature, good, and God any less horrible. Michael Vick ought to go away for a very long time, or be sentenced to years and years of reparations and community service aimed at the improvement of the life of those creatures he has so violently and viciously abused.

He is getting off way too easily if you ask me.