Meat

Dear Em,
Some over-zealous vegans poured red paint all over the butter cow at the state fair this week. Did you hear about this? I think that what they did was wrong, and silly, and counterproductive to whatever they thought they were going to accomplish, but it made me wonder: is eating meat (and dairy) wrong? We've stopped eating meat mainly because of health concerns, but there is a part of me that's started to wonder exactly what God meant when he told us to have dominion over the animals and subdue the earth. God ordered animal sacrifices. He had rules about clean and unclean animals. I'm pretty sure He's okay with eating meat in general terms. But is he okay with hog confinements? With genetically altering animals so they taste better? With cutting off those poor chickens' feet and beaks? With artificially inseminating cows and making them half calves one after the other for years in a row? Am I being weird?

Love,
Al