Huffington Post: "Michael Vick's Dog Would Be the Luckiest Dog on the Planet"

The title alone–Michael Vick’s Dog Would Be the Luckiest Dog on the Planet–is insulting and off-putting.  Now, I’m not a dog owner, but my wife and kids are. The idea that owners who have cared for animals their whole lives would be less ideal than an NFL star who served jail time for doing horrible things to dogs is ridiculous.

The worst part of the piece, though, is the race card. Hutchinson claims that racism is one of the reasons that Vick cannot own a dog. The piece then goes on to make claims about the negative perceptions and public outcry against Vick, claims which I don’t think match the current climate. In my opinion, most of the public in this forgiving society have given Vick a chance and aren’t rooting against him merely for what he did.  Many are rooting for him for turning his life around.  It’s not racism to hate the act or revile what Michael Vick did. Vick getting a dog may happen in the future, but let’s let that play out with the court system and the judge, and evidence being presented, and not based on a public interview of Michael Vick. What Hutchinson calls “the idiocy of a court system that deals in rigid absolutes,” I call necessary for society. People who commit crimes often have conditions related to the victimes and nature of their crimes put upon them, even after serving jail time. It serves a necessary function to require a high burden to overcome that–protecting those that cannot protect themselves–and needing more time to see evidence is not idiocy, and it’s certainly not racist.

[photo via Getty]