I'm not sure if I'm more angry or wearied...
Since the AFA site provides no means to contact the author, and I don't want to bother any of my friends with Facebook consequences were I to join the comment group, I thought the best means to reply to Brian Fischer's latest effort would be with a post here. I've perused some of his previous essays as well, and I'll admit that I can be a very impatient reader. I don't enjoy reading about treacherous characters in fiction (I only made it through a part of War and Peace as a result), and I become actively enraged by sanctimonious intolerance. So I boast now, and always will, no more than the lightest passing familiarity with what Fischer writes.
Some of his conflations are--you name the adjective which best describes your reaction--infuriating, funny, puzzling, sad. Such as, removing active Christian prayer from schools is to destroy religious freedom. (Because Christianity is the only religion, and enforcing it in schools and elsewhere is only natural.) Such as, outlawing homosexual acts will terminate many of our current social problems, such as equal rights, gay marriage and gays in the military. (I'd rather legislate away stupidity, but that would be no easier. Besides, it is a human right to love and be attracted to whomever we will.)
What tires me most about fanatic missionaries like Fischer, Palin and all other harpies, is their overwhelming fear. Fear fuels their hostility (however genteel the appearance of hostility). They are at odds with their own god, because Jesus overcame fear. A constant undercurrent of the stories about him is of a man unafraid of what is right in front of him. Or seek it out, in the form of the company of prostitutes, the sick, and disgraced tax-collectors. He was unafraid to break the rules of the Torah. He was unafraid among the religious elites of Israel. He was unafraid to understand the thoughts of the people around him. He was unafraid to die.
Contrast that with a phony like Palin who fled every school where whites didn't dominate, or with the tiny-minded Fischer who wants to purge, by reprogramming, jail or murder if necessary, those whose lifestyles he doesn't enjoy. There is no such thing as tolerance if everyone follows one creed.
Against this larger backdrop, I have some words about his comments on the orca whale. I'm sorry for the trainer and everyone who knew her, and for the crowd who had to watch something so horrific. I volunteered at an aquarium for some time, and heard stories about (though never saw) gorings and worse, including dolphins killing people swimming with them. They are all wild animals, meat-eaters, predators. Marine mammals are also quite intelligent, and it's legitimate to use the term "psychology" on them. Dismal work and living conditions can certainly drive them toward savage behavior. Anyone who's felt road rage can empathize.
Of course Fischer would place a biblical template on everything. If an animal kills, kill it. If it kills again, kill it and the owners. (He's backed away from such literalism by his second essay--going only so far as to joke they should be sued.)
His comparison to a pit bull being put down isn't entirely accurate. An aggressive pit bull who attacks a passerby is in public, presumably with the ability to attack anyone nearby. All too often, such aggressive dogs have been trained to be so, and represent constant threats.
Marine mammals--show animals in general--are in controlled environments, specifically because they are wild predators. Only trained professionals, like the one who died, are allowed direct contact (I wasn't allowed near the sea lions without a trainer). These trainers know the risks. Meanwhile, the paying public is in almost no danger. That's the nature of a controlled environment.
That makes the death no less awful, and the issue certainly does exist: the orca has a pattern of attacking trainers. Is the animal safe? If not, how to end the threat? Remove it from show, and let it live in a tank? Euthanize it? Or set it free (the worst solution in my mind--it has no idea how to survive in the ocean)? On a larger scale--are these marine mammal displays and shows ethical, or wise at all?
But the premise that human lives have infinite value, while animals do not, I discount. We're all humans at this site, and we value our species above all others. That's only natural. But we also happen to part of a vast, sensitive and unimaginably fine network of life on this planet. All life is sacred. Those like Fischer who want to insist that an Iron Age set of ethics is the best way to live in the 21st century, simply refuse to learn what it is to be alive in the 21st century.