Muslims in America have to overcome all sorts of obstacles and hardships. For the 100,000 Muslims in Northern Virginia, the latest trouble comes from well-heeled Beltway denizens grossed out by the halal slaughter of chickens.
Abdulsalem Mused wants to open a butcher’s shop on Colvin Street in Alexandria, where customers choose their bird, which is then slaughtered according to halal principles — without stunning the bird, the butcher slits its throat to bring about as swift a death as possible.
Halal slaughter, like Kosher slaughter, has earned the ire of animal rights activists on the secular Left, especially in Europe. Denmark bans the practice. That antagonism now has spread to the wealthy, white, liberal suburbs of D.C.
“Ritual slaughter is decidedly inhumane,” one commenter wrote on a Washington Post article. “Alexandria is a beautiful and peaceful city,” wrote another. “Please don’t allow an inherently cruel, bloody and violent business to open shop within its confines.”
Mused’s main antagonist was Kevin Gilliam, a pre-eminent citizen of Colvin Street. Gilliam owns and operates Frolick Dogs, a “canine sports club” on the street, which is also home to Alexandria’s annual “love your pets day.”
“I think it’d be really difficult to get Alexandria together to love your pets,” Gilliam said, “if you’re walking in front of a slaughterhouse.”
The objectors successfully delayed approval of the butcher shop. But in late March, the city council voted 7-2 to approve the permitting required. Plenty of Alexandrians chanted “Shame! Shame! Shame!” at the City Council.
Despite the outcry by some neighbors in wealthy, liberal Alexandria, the forces of intolerance lost to the all-American duo of free enterprise and free exercise of religion.
