I Am Officially No Longer Catholic!

A few weeks ago, I sent a letter to the Archbishop of the Archdiocese of the Parish where I was baptized asking them to indicate in their records that I am no longer Catholic, so as not to be counted among the flock. Here's the text of the letter I sent.

Dear Sir,

I am writing to request that your records be amended to reflect that I am no longer a member of the Catholic Church. I understand that this means I will not be able to receive the sacraments of the Church. Please confirm that this has been done in writing to me. I have made this decision of sound mind and body and made it known to my next of kin.

I was... baptized sometime in May or June [1976] at Holy Redeemer Church in Kensington, MD. I know that my parent's reasons for having me baptized extended beyond any divine protection they thought it would give me. It was a ritual affirming me as part of our family. I am grateful for that. My rejection of Catholicism is not a rejection of that affirmation.

I have not attended a Catholic church since I was young, sometime after my first communion. I didn't understand Catholic doctrine then. What I did know I found convoluted and contrived and still do. I was probably around 8 or 9 years old when I decided that there was no evidence for the existence of an interventionist god or a hell or heaven and no reason to try to suspend my disbelief in them.

This has not led me to hopelessness however. I have found many sources of hope in people and ideas that I have encountered since then. I became vegan around 1996 and have been inspired by ideas from Positive Psychology, Experiential Dynamic Therapy, Metaphysical Naturalism and the Jedi Philosophy, and I'm always learning more. I strive to live my life engaged with reality, as objectively as I can experience it, and to experience my emotions, relate deeply to the experiences of other sentient beings, seek out joy and be a force of good in the world.

I do not find the Catholic Church at all useful in these regards. Rather, I find it in conflict with these aims and harmful to people in many ways: its intolerance of homosexuals, lesser treatment of divorced Catholics, protection of pedophile priests and efforts against accurate sex education, reproductive freedom and death with dignity. I know that there is much good to be found in the Catholic Church as well, such as concern for the poor and the sick, but I find that the bad far outweighs the good, and I can find all of that good, without so much of the bad, elsewhere.

May the force be with you,
Maura McCormick

Here is the letter I received today:

Yay!

So my next step is to celebrate with a de-baptism ritual, complete with a blow dryer to dry away those baptismal waters. I'm thinking about what words I want on my blow dryer. I like Tom Clark of the Center for Naturalism's summary of Naturalism in the words "connection", "compassion" and "control".

Vegans Aren't All Who You Think They Are!

Some non-vegans seem to assume that vegans are a rather homogeneous demographic that is composed of mostly a few stereotypes such as hippies, health-freaks and anarchist punks who are all politically liberal and live in very densely populated areas. If this is what you think, listen up! Vegans are a very diverse group of people! There are vegans of every age, ethnicity, income, education level, political affiliation, many different religions and no religion at all. They live around the world in big cities and little towns. They range from strict raw foodists to deep-fried vegans and from tree-hugging hippies to SUV-driving consumerists.

Note that veganism is a lifestyle that strives to avoid supporting any abuse, exploitation or killing of animals when choosing what to purchase or consume, so all vegans are concerned about animals. Even here though vegans vary widely on exactly what our obligations to animals should be and how they have arrived at those positions. Some see veganism as a way to be "merciful" to animals (to quote Dominion author Matthew Scully), but don't think that animals have natural rights. Others do think animals have natural rights that should become legal rights.

Vegans whose efforts to advance animal welfare and/or animal rights extend beyond their own veganism vary widely between those who believe in prioritizing improvements to the welfare of animals as a means of incrementally abolishing the commercial exploitation of animals and those who see such improvements as unnecessary compromises at best or helping animal exploiters to deceive the public that they are "humane" at worst. Whether illegal activities, property damage, violence against animal abusers or sexy or shocking media campaigns are acceptable tactics in activism for animals is also a matter of fierce debate among such activists.

So the next time you start thinking of "those vegans" as some kind of stereotype, stop and remember how diverse I've told you we are. One of "those vegans" could be a lot like you!

How To Not Eat Animal Flesh, Eggs or Milk Products...For One Friggin' Meal!

Over the years, I've heard a lot of people say that they are sympathetic to the suffering of animals raised for food and maybe even see the injustice of killing them, but they could never give up eating meat, dairy or eggs because they just like the taste of them too much, they're accustomed to them, being vegan is just too hard or because they think that what they, as one person, eat doesn't matter anyway. It's an admission that there is some cognitive dissonance involved in their continued consumption of these products. Many vegans, including myself, used to dismiss the possibility of going vegan for one or all of these reasons. Once I allowed myself to truly relate to the suffering of animals and their desire to live, those foods started to lose their appeal. (Imagine if someone told you that your favorite foods were made from puppies or kittens.) My excuses fell away and I found that I didn't know how much cognitive dissonance I had until I felt the relief of its absence. I also came to realize that what I eat does make a difference. By myself, I am reducing the demand for thousands of animals to be killed in my lifetime, and, together with hundreds of thousands of other vegans and others who often choose to eat vegan, I am increasing the demand for vegan food. I know that many people who see the raising and killing of animals for food as something less than ideal prefer to maintain that cognitive dissonance than go vegan. However, anyone can choose to boycott the products of animal suffering and death at some meals even if they don't at every meal. Each meal that one eats vegan makes a difference. For those for whom eating vegan meals or eating them more often seems difficult, I present options and instructions on how to accept this challenge one meal at a time.

Step 1. Determine your criteria for the food you eat. You can try something quick to make or convenient to buy or have fun creating something in the kitchen. This is a great opportunity to try something healthier, more "exotic" or "weird" than you usually eat, or to treat yourself to something special.

Step 2. Choose a method of procurement for said meal. You can get a ready-to-eat or ready-to-heat vegan meal at a restaurant or grocery store (see VegGuide.org), whip something up quickly from vegan convenience foods or prepare a meal from a recipe or recipes. There are many vegan recipes online and in books at your library (if you're not ready to buy one yet) or you can modify an existing recipe to be vegan by replacing non-vegan ingredients with vegan ones. You don't have to make a lot of food, spend much money or get more of any ingredient than you think that you'll use. There are recipes that make smaller quantities and/or use ingredients that you probably already have on hand or already use and only a package or can of something else, if anything. Consider buying or making enough food to share with another adventurous eater or a vegan you know. Better yet, enjoy a vegan meal at a vegan meetup near you!

Step 3. Eat said meal. Take pleasure in knowing that (almost) no animals were exploited or killed to produce it. New and different foods can take getting used to. Don't expect vegan imitations of nonvegan foods to have the taste or texture of the originals (though some of them do) or measure them by that standard. They can taste good in their own way. Don't judge a food by your first reaction to it. Try to experience the taste and texture of it and then decide if you like it. It really is possible to acquire a taste for something, not just learn to tolerate it. I know a vegan who told me that when he first tried a dish with nutritional yeast (a dried, non-active yeast with a cheddary/nutty flavor) in it he hated it, but now he loves it.

Step 4. Consider what you liked about the meal, and how, if at all, you would prefer it be different. If you didn't like what you ate or what you prepared didn't turn out like you expected it to, don't assume that the next vegan food you eat or prepare won't be better. There is as much variety in the taste, texture and ease of preparation of vegan foods as there is in nonvegan foods. Try something else!

Step 5. Repeat often!

The Ohioans for Humane Farms Ballot Initiative Campaign: What I'd Do Differently

At the Vegetarian Summerfest and Animal Rights Conferences which I attended there was a lot of discussion of the question of whether animal rights activists like myself should be working for improvements in how animals raised for food are treated rather than encouraging people to reduce or eliminate their consumption of animal foods. I discussed this question with other vegans at both conferences and came to think differently about my participation in the recent effort lead by the Humane Society of the US and others as the coalition "Ohioans for Humane Farms" to get an initiative on the ballot in Ohio to give animals enough space to stand up, turn around and spread their wings and be euthanized humanely and to prevent animals too sick or injured to walk from entering the food supply. Enough signatures were collected to get the initiative on the ballot and a deal has been struck to get legislation passed that would do most of what the ballot initiative would have done if it passed as well as much more for other animals.

I do believe that it is preferable that an animal raised for food suffer less rather than more. Having thought about this campaign more, I think I still would have collected some signatures, but would have just emailed people that I know in the Dayton area to let them know that I had a petition that they could sign, and maybe I would have sent a letter to the editor about it. The message in that email and letter would have extended far beyond any that Ohioans for Humane Farms would recommend however.

I don't believe that my participation in this campaign or that of any vegan was necessary for it's success. There were many volunteers who were not even vegetarian. HSUS also had the means to pay people to gather signatures and could have paid many more. This seems to be a much better use of their money than the exorbitant salaries and wasteful direct mail fund raising campaigns that they spend it on now. It's also money raised largely from people who are not vegetarian or vegan. This is the most "radical" campaign that those people are likely to support. As a vegan, if I had the opportunity to work on such a campaign again, I would let those donors pay for signature gatherers while I worked on promoting veganism and debunking the myth that an animal can be humanely raised and slaughtered for food. While there are some organizations like VegFund that will pay you to hand out vegan food and literature and even reimburse you for paying people to watch short movies that show the cruelty of raising and slaughtering animals for food and advocate veganism, they don't have anywhere near the resources that HSUS does.

I regret wearing a button that said I was a volunteer for "Ohioans for Humane Farms" because I think the only humane farms are those that don't send their animals to slaughter or otherwise kill them when they are "spent" from laying so many eggs or producing so much milk. I also regret not using the petition as a starting point for a conversation with my non-vegan friends here in Ohio about why I thought signing the petition was important, but literally the least they could do and why they shouldn't feel too good about it. In such a conversation (or email) I would have talked about how these changes won't go into effect for a long time and about the practices this initiative wouldn't stop, such as mutilations (i.e. searing beaks of chicks, "docking" piglets' tails) of farmed animals to keep them from hurting each other in crowded conditions that are likely to continue after the cages and gestation crates are gone. I'd have explained how animals are bred to grow so large, so quickly that they live in constant pain and often die prematurely. I'd have pointed out that cows grieve when they're babies are taken away from them, that all animals raised for food are killed when they are very young and they all protest being slaughtered violently when they are not ambushed. I'd have pointed out that the industry could invent other, possibly even crueler practices to circumvent whatever law is passed to because their sole concern is profit and the animals they exploit for this are merely units of production to them. I'd add that the increased space requirements for animals would mean more wild habitats would be destroyed to make room for them. Finally, I would have reminded them that vegan meals can be mighty tasty and taste a lot like the foods they enjoy and that they have the opportunity to eat vegan food at least three times a day and save lives, the environment and possibly their health in the process.

I would have been discouraged from saying any of these things by HSUS staff though.

New Vegans Are The Best Therapy!

I'm really excited about the Vegan Challenge here in Dayton for the month of May, for which I've volunteered to be support staff. Sharing the joy of veganism and the deliciousness of good vegan food will be wonderful. Apparently, several participants in last years' challenge stayed vegan. I know from meeting new vegans through the Dayton Vegan Meetup that being around them and hearing about their passion and enthusiasm for veganism and love of animals is truly inspiring and gives me hope for the vegan movement and the future of humanity, so I'm looking forward to more of that. Vegans are my peeps, yo!