[Sca-cooks] To cat or not to cat

[Terry Decker]

Individually, it's not a big issue.  However, there are many individuals who 
have no experience with subsistence hunting and fishing and are squeamish 
about eating critters that might have names.  Collectively, they out number 
the subsistence hunters and have created laws and organizations to help 
enforce their views as societal norms.

Had the woman who is considering cooking a cat as an A&S project, simply 
done it, she alone would be responsible and any legal complaint or social 
fall out would land on her.  Instead, she is trying to bring others into her 
project, a project that they find offensive and with which they do not wish 
to be associated, which can place them, against their will, in the path of 
legal and social outrage.  As for the SCA, consider the wonderful PR to be 
found in the headline "PETA Pickets Pennsic."

Since her actions could have legal and social reprecussions and damage the 
SCA and the membership individually or collectively, the Kingdom Seneschal 
has the authority to prohibit a cat cooking demonstration under the auspices 
of the SCA, especially if the demo violates health or animal safety 
regulations.  There is also the point, that since some people in the SCA 
have an almost religious love of cats worthy of a worshipper of Bastet, 
carving up a cat at an event might fall under the general prohibition on 
magic and religion.

Bear


> huh.  I'm clueless as to why this is a big issue (unless she's taking
> someone's pet), but then I don't understand most social cues.  So I'll 
> stay
> out of the mix, here.
>
> -- 
> Ian of Oertha