Chicago’s city council drew praise from some quarters, ridicule from others, when it passed a law making foie gras, the enlarged liver of a force-fed goose or duck, illegal. Better yet, the enforcement mechanism of citizen’s arrest was reminiscent of a culinary Charles Bronson movie.

But the backlash has begun. Aldermen are considering a bill to repeal the ban, but it’s no longer about food, or animal rights, or a pissing match between rivals in the City That Works. It’s about God.

“Beyond the Kosher dietary laws, God has told us to do what is ‘good and proper in the eyes of God,'” Rabbi Asher Lopatin of Anshe Sholom B’Nail Israel Congregation wrote to Aldermen Burton F. Natarus (42nd) and Bernard Stone (50th). “The cruelty inflicted on animals in the production of foie gras is unspeakable. It is undeniably disgusting in the eyes of God and in the eyes of any civilized person.”

Threats like that are enough to drive you to drink. Which inflates the liver… hmm.

So how cruel is foie gras production really? Read a firsthand account by an American witnessing the process at a farm in France, and decide for yourself.

Jewish leaders: Overturning foie gras ban could anger God [Chicago Sun-Times]

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