Should Ethical Vegans Have a Beef with the Definition of Religion?
Abstract
Veganism, where adherents eschew the consumption of animals or their by-products, has seen a substantial increase in popularity in recent years. Vegans who follow the diet for moral or ethical reasons (ethical vegans) have argued in the United States, with limited success and, more recently, in the United Kingdom that they should be protected from discrimination on the grounds of their adherence to ethical veganism, contending that ethical veganism should be subject to similar protections as religion. In the United Kingdom, anti-discrimination legislation protects philosophical beliefs in addition to religion and it was recently held in a preliminary hearing in Casamitjana v The League Against Cruel Sports that ethical veganism falls within the ambit of the relevant statute. The authors examine the situation in the United Kingdom and the United States and conclude that, given that Australian anti-discrimination statutes only refer to religion as a protected attribute, this outcome is unlikely to be replicated since veganism is highly unlikely to meet the current definition of religion.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).