Vegans have won this court case – but they're losing hearts and minds

Many are put off by vegans' reputation for shouty self-righteousness – Friday's court ruling is unlikely to change that

When on Friday a court ruled that ethical veganism was akin to a religion and should be protected by law, many vegans celebrated. Yet we should be cautious about doing so.

Jordi Casamitjana’s case against his employer was that he was discriminated against on the basis of his veganism – he did not want his pension invested in companies linked to animal experiments.

It’s been years since I ate, wore, or used animal products, so I guess that makes me an “ethical” vegan, too – though who came up with the definition isn’t clear. To me, being a dietary vegan is pretty ethical already.

But resorting to the law to enforce one’s rights is hardly the best way to promote support for one’s views.

The perception of vegans as shouty turns many people off veganism; nobody likes to think something is being foisted on them, or that they’re being judged. Indeed, many people react badly to it.

You don’t get people to empathise with you or like you by force, and you don’t get people to tolerate your views or win them over by insisting on your rights. Who ever started liking someone because they had a gun held to their head?

Indeed, insisting punctiliously on your rights is a surefire way of getting people to dislike you. Whether in the workplace or on an international level, it causes friction. You may get your way superficially, but it sets up the type of opposition that leads to psychological, cultural and geopolitical tensions.

Even the “-ism” after the word vegan is a suffix some of us baulk at using – suggesting, as is it does, a certain religiosity.

Mr Casamitjana’s case also risks encouraging the creep of a wearisome culture of insisting on “rights”. Sure, human rights and religious faiths must be respected; but the idea has started to filter down through society to petty levels, such as restaurant customers demanding discounts because the menu doesn’t exactly match that displayed on the website, or pool-goers complaining because of a closure on one day of the school holidays. First-world problems where a sense of perspective is required.

Using the law to enforce vegans’ rights is like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut – a kind of needless passive aggression.

Far better for vegans to demonstrate that we are just like everyone else; that we don’t get up at 5am to knit our own hemp, pray to Buddha, perfect our yoga or devise other new ways to single ourselves out.

More effective is to get on with being vegan, showing by quiet long-term example that we are normal, too.

A lot of people who avoid consuming meat, dairy and eggs instinctively know this, which is why the tribunal result received a mixed reaction.

Showing that you don’t have to undergo any kind of spiritual conversion, be indoctrinated into anything, sign any documents, have any special qualities or turn your lifestyle upside down to stop being cruel to animals is more likely to be a far more constructive and effective influence in the long run than insisting on our rights.

This tribunal victory has done little to encourage people to give up meat and animal-derived and -tested products. It’s a pity the case was ever brought.