In our society today many people share a very close relationship with other non-human animals. These animals often include cats, dogs, birds and fish to name a few and many treat them as if they were another member of their family. Of course, as said by Francione, many of these people do not think twice before eating meat or wearing leather clothing. This just exemplifies the distinguished differences that many people see between certain animals. The question is now whether or not it is right to treat animals with that double standard. What is the difference between treating some animals humanely as "part of the family" while also justifying maiming and violence toward animals for the purpose of food or religious rituals? Do some animals have more "rights" than others because we believe they are more intelligent and have the ability to reason and therefore, serve a better purpose to us? The answers to these questions are quite evident in the way human beings treat animals both socially and legally. Whether or not this is morally right is a different story.
Constantly in our legal system animals are looked at as property of humans, not as living creatures. They are judged by their value, just the same as a car or a television set would be. Traditionally judgements even rule in favor that an inanimate object such as a television set that is worth $1,000 in monetary value, is more valuable than a cat someone may have purchased at an animal shelter for maybe $50. A court case involving animal cruelty in Iowa exemplifies this idea. .
On March 8th 1997, three teenage boys broke into Noah's Ark animal shelter in Fairfield, Iowa and bludgeoned 23 cats to death with baseball bats. The boys later signed a confession admitting to killing the cats. The jury in the court case was left to determine the monetary value of the cats in order to determine if the boys would be charged with a felony, the threshold was $500.