General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Do People Hate Vegans? [View all]Xithras
(16,191 posts)My daughter and her best friend are vegan. I have no issue with the lifestyle itself. Her friends boyfriend, on the other hand, is one of those preachy "meat is murder" vegans who never misses an opportunity to preach his faith and try to convert everyone around him...and to attack those who aren't interested. I've heard him compare the eating of meat to the Holocaust, and meat eaters to the German population who stood by and let it happen. He was once (AND ONLY ONCE) invited to a BBQ at my house. I actually have a separate BBQ grill just for vegan and vegetarian fare, and try to accommodate the vegetarians and vegans in my home and family as much as possible. He practically threw a tantrum when he asked about my preparation methods and I answered in the affirmative when he wanted to know if the knives used on his food had ever been used to cut meat. Mind you, I do isolate my preperation areas from each other, never cross contaminate meals while I'm cooking, and the utensils had been fully scrubbed and washed after their previous uses, but I certainly don't maintain a fully separate set of pots, pans, silverware and kitchen utensils for vegan use. He said that he wouldn't eat food prepared with knives that had been used to commit murder, and angrily ordered his girlfriend not to eat anything either. He told my daughter that "real vegans" don't eat food prepared by meat eaters (my daughter, to her credit, told him that he was an idiot).
Preachy vegans are just as annoying as Tea Partiers and Christian evangelists. You have the right to believe whatever you want and live your life according to whichever moral codes best suit you, but when you use YOUR beliefs to attack the beliefs and moral codes of another, you just become another preachy holier than thou shithead. While I don't hate them, they certainly annoy the crap out of me.