Letter on kosher meat in The Independent

I don't read The Independent. I'm a Guardian reader who's defected to The Times. But I was at my parents' house and I saw this awful Independent column by Johann Hari: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-har.... So I wrote a letter, which, I now discover online, they published last Tuesday (http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-how-animals-are-kil... - Henry Grunwald had a letter in there as well). Here is the letter as I sent it:

I support the right of Jews and Muslims to practise kosher and halal slaughter. I also oppose the "frightening rise in real bigotry against Muslims and...Jews". According to Johann Hari, I am being inconsistent, as "the only consistent position is to oppose viciousness against these minorities, and to oppose viciousness by these minorities" ("Johann Hari: The religious excuse for barbarity", Friday 19 November 2010).

Mr Hari is thus equating kosher and halal meat production with the actions of a thug who beats up Jews or burns down mosques. So law-abiding communities of British people, slaughtering animals under the supervision of the same welfare authorities that supervise secular meat production, are to be considered on a par with violent extremists who hate Jews and Muslims? This is as grotesque as to equate someone who eats a factory-farmed Christmas turkey with someone who mugs old ladies.

Religious Jews and Muslims practise kosher and halal because they believe them to be the most humane methods of animal slaughter, and a lot of scientists agree with them. To call this "viciousness", and to place it on a par with racial and religious hatred, is to spectacularly lose one's moral compass.