"But we's so clever, Maw!", or: Please at least do us the courtesy of doing some research before attempting anti-vegan articles.

Lisa quite rightly highlights the idiocy of Michael Coulter’s article in the Sunday Age, 29 March, titled "Why are these vegans sent to plague us?". I think it was meant to be witty, but the lack of thorough research and well-reasoned argument was astonishing.

Michael trots out the old "But we’s so clever, Maw!" argument, and in light of that I invite him to visit a person who has a severe mental impairment and ask if it’s ok to kill and eat them. Distasteful? Logical, on Michael’s reasoning - but not on mine. We’re not "anti-people", Michael; in fact I’d say that you’re pretty pro-conceptual-ability-as-arbiter-of-worthiness-to-live, which makes you anti-intellectual disability, anti-dementia, anti-general age-related fuzziness, anti-people with low educational achievement, and presumably anti-child. Or did you mean the general intellectual standard of an entire species? In that case just say so and don’t get caught up in arguments about who deserves to live and die based on brainpower, cos when the super-aliens come you’ll be toast (literally) – that’s the logical conclusion to your argument.

Prompted by the excellent Miss Caitlin, founding member of Lawyers For Animals, I also responded via The Age, but in case it’s not printed (and I’ll be up bright and early on Sunday to eagerly snatch my copy of the paper), here is my letter to editor (Scoop! Miss T scoops herself!)

I'm disappointed that Michael Coulter's article ("Why are these vegans sent to plague us?”, Sunday 29 March) succumbed to nonsensical babble like "How would we live in a world where cows have equal rights with humans?". Michael, there are serious and well-researched ethical, environmental and health related reasons behind people's decisions to go vegan, none of which were canvassed in your article. We'd be happy to have an informed and sensible discussion with you if you're willing, and if you're not won over by our reasoned and rational arguments, I'm sure my vegan banana bread will do the trick.