Our unofficial taboo animal

Don't get me wrong, I'm an animal lover and something of an animal rights sort of guy, but please this is going a little too far:

The line of horses stepping toward slaughter at a DeKalb plant came to an abrupt halt Thursday after a federal court order that animal-rights advocates hope may mark the end of the killing and shipping of meat overseas.

Animal advocates hope permanent action comes soon enough that the last horse butchered in the U.S. for human consumption was in Cavel International Inc.'s "killing box" on Wednesday.

[H]orses enjoy a warmer place in American hearts than the other hoofed livestock. Yet horses at Cavel are slaughtered just like cattle -- with a handheld "penetrating captive bolt" device applied to the skull that opponents consider barbaric but regulators consider humane. The meat is destined mostly for Europe, where it is considered a delicacy.
John Biemer, Chicago Tribune.com

As India reveres the cow, now America reveres the horse. If you thought the Hindu prohibition against eating beef was odd, here we see the process that transformed a food animal into a god in action in this country. Let us hope than some incurible disease never ravages America's livestock of beef cattle, pigs and chicken, leaving us only horses to eat. We'd starve.