Religious slaughter and the conflict between secular and religious interests: dispelling the myth

La macellazione rituale e il conflitto tra interessi secolari e religiosi: sfatando il mito

Abstract

It is commonly assumed that religious slaughter without previous stunning raises a conflict between secular and religious interests, identified in animal welfare and religious slaughter, and regarded to be opposed and irreconcilable. This contribution argues that this view is narrow-minded and has three main flaws: firstly, it adopts a sort of Manichean approach by stressing the differences between religious and conventional slaughter and ignoring the common features shared by these two methods; secondly, it assumes the existence of a dichotomy between a merely religious interest that, as such, is exclusively promoted by religious actors and, vice versa, an intrinsically secular interest advanced by secular parties; thirdly,  it denies or at least neglects the role played by such factors as anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in the antipathy towards religious slaughter.

Keywords: Religious slaughter; Animal welfare; Religious freedom; Anti-Semitism; Islamophobia