This article describes the proposal of elevating the status of plant life to a new moral plane. The place that once was occupied by humanity (only), was recently expanded to include animal life (look no further than PETA). Not satisfied with the inclusion of animals only, agitators are extending it yet again to include plants.
[No word yet on what such people suggest we use as food.]
Man had a unique place for a reason: Humanity, and humanity ALONE is made in the image of God. The Genesis mandate to be stewards of the world we inhabit implicitly holds that we are distinct from it. Killing a person is completely different from killing an animal for exactly this reason. Rights activists want to erase the distinction:
Eschewing humans as the pinnacle of "creation" (to borrow the term used in the Swiss constitution) has caused environmentalism to mutate from conservationism--a concern to properly steward resources and protect pristine environs and endangered species--into a willingness to thwart human flourishing to "save the planet." Indeed, the most radical "deep ecologists" have grown so virulently misanthropic that Paul Watson, the head of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, called humans "the AIDS of the earth," requiring "radical invasive therapy" in order to reduce the population of the earth to under a billion.
Belief in evolution blurs the lines of separation. It claims to elevate nature to share in the exalted position man holds. In practice, however, it reduces man to bare biology. Secularists are naturally following their worldview to its conclusion: if all life came from some ooze, then all life is intrinsically equal. This does not elevate all life to 'sacred'. By eliminating the notion of sacred, all life is equally profane.
Quoting The Incredibles, "...if everybody is 'Super', then nobody is."
This idea, like most heresies, isn't really new. Augustine was debunking the Manichaeans in the 5th century, and their ideas weren't too far from this one.
As Albert Mohler points out in the post that led me to this article, the same people advocating for expanded rights for plants and animals, are often first in line to advocate abortion and euthanasia. It all ties together.
