March 21, 2018
A dozen animal rights activists protested Tuesday evening on Park Terrace West near the residence of Dr. Mary Bassett, Commissioner, NYC Department of Health. According to TheirTurn spokesperson Donny Moss, some 60,000 chickens are confined for days in connection with a religious ritual in Brooklyn. Moss said he’s seen dead chickens mixed with live ones in crates for days at a time.
“It’s extreme animal cruelty.” Moss says that Dr. Bassett has seen a toxicology report stating the presence of e. coli, coliform, and other pathogens. “I’m sure if it was happening on her doorstep it would be banned,” said protester Michael D.
A statement from DOH: “We have not found Kaporos to be a significant public health threat — our surveillance has shown no increase in illness — and this ritual is an important practice for some Orthodox Jews.” A court agreed last June, noting that the Supreme Court has recognized animal sacrifice as a religious sacrament.
Your statement in this article, that state Supreme Court, New York’s lower court, “has recognized animal sacrifice as a religious sacrament” is wholly inaccurate. The order and decision said no such thing. Rather, the decision stated that the NYPD has discretion with respect to enforcing city and state laws. Nowhere in the decision was animal sacrifice deemed legal, or outside the scope of the law. This decision was appealed, and went to the Appellate Division, First Dept. The Appellate Division was split, and the case is now pending in the State’s highest court, the NY State Court of Appeals. -Nora Constance Marino, Esq., Attorney for Plaintiffs of the subject litigation.
Reference was to US Supreme Court, via Gische:
“Rituals involving animal sacrifice are present in some religions and although they may be upsetting to nonadherents of such practice, the United States Supreme Court has recognized animal sacrifice as a religious sacrament and decided that it is protected under the Free Exercise Clause of the Constitution, as applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment (Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v Hialeah, 508 US 520, 531 [1993]).”
https://law.justia.com/cases/new-york/appellate-division-first-department/2017/156730-15-3256.html
Thank you for your comment and clarification about NY Supreme Court.