How the Animal Welfare Law in Lebanon can go wrong

The Animal Welfare Law will see the light. It will be a stellar achievement for Animals Lebanon and the thousand of great people that support their work. But what will really change once this law is finally be enacted?

Looking at the way we are selectively applying other laws, chances are nothing will change unless we, as a society change as well.

For a law to work in Lebanon, it has to be convenient for everybody. Let’s take a moment to look at existing laws in our society that should be applied and are not.

The hunting ban is an example. Every other hunter will tell you the law should not apply to him because he only kills migrating birds, if he shoots something else, it is only because on that day particular day, he was frustrated. The hunting ban is there, but billboards advertising shotguns and glorifying hunting are never taken down.

 

The traffic laws are there. We always stop at red lights unless we are in a hurry.

Indoors smoking ban, is now just a joke. People supposed to care the most about it are breaking it.

I recently declined an invitation to a fund raiser organized at a venue that breaks the indoors smoking ban. The hypocrisy lies in the fact that the fund raiser was organized by a group of people raising money to care for the environment.

Laws change nothing if not respected.

The Animal Welfare Law will not please eveybdoy. Hoarders will not like it and they will come up with their excuses to break it. Abusers come up with excuses to break it and some will even believe the law is wrong.

Fact is, not all laws are perfect. Many laws need improvement but for society to function laws must be respected until they are changed.

I can barely wait to see the Animal Welfare Law enacted. It took years of work and could save countless animals. It would also instill some much needed humanity into our angry society.

Each time we break a law we do not like it, we set the stage for someone to break another law that we might particularly care about.
Every time someone comes up with an excuse to drive through a red light, a bad example about respecting laws is set.
Every cigarette lit indoors is another nail in the coffin of the law.

Animal welfare does not depend only on set of laws, it depends on the small things that each of us does on a day to day basis.

So please support the law, the best you can.

To learn more about Animal Lebanon’s campaign.
http://www.animalslebanon.org/law/campaign