SOUL FOOD:

Several years ago when I wrote about the celebration of Eid-ul-Adha, which translates “Feast of Sacrifice,” by a local group of Muslims, its spokesman, Yusuf Gurtas, wanted to make one thing particularly clear: The goats sacrificed for the occasion were purchased and professionally butchered at a meat-processing plant in Chino, not killed in people’s backyards.

Not that it might have been any better for the goats, as it turns out. A sharp knife put quickly to a jugular vein is arguably more humane than what was happening to livestock at Chino’s Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. before it was closed last year for inhumane slaughterhouse methods.

Most of our slaughterhouses — or, in more sanitized terms, our meat-processing plants — scarcely afford livestock significantly better treatment.

If you don’t believe me, read online comments posted by slaughterhouse employees in various forums in the wake of the Chino closure.

We keep a guarded distance from the source of the meat we eat. We can eat burgers ’til the cows come home with never a glimpse of how those cows live and die before they’re gutted, ground, grilled and sandwiched into a bun.

Ignorance, an often calculated ignorance, about factory farming practices afford us a genteel picture of ourselves in which we have outgrown any treatment of animals that could be characterized as barbaric.

Gurtas and his group of mostly immigrant Muslims were on to us. They took steps to make sure their religious goat sacrifices not only didn’t break our laws but also did not offend our sensibilities.

Not so the practitioners of whatever religion — or religions — who left the remains of rabbits and ducks and chickens and at least one goat scattered throughout Newport Beach in recent weeks. Offend sensibilities, they did.

The emotional pitch of the outrage they elicited conjured images of in my mind of torch-carrying mobs. Reason was abandoned as the perpetrators and their religious motives were decried.

Their sacrificial acts were excoriated as “egregious and barbaric” torture and mutilation of animals.

I was sorry to see Santería singled out by Newport Beach police for this abuse. There are other religions with African roots practiced in this country — Vodou and Palo Monte being just a couple. They’re also given to animal sacrifice.

But since the Supreme Court case Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah made it clear that animal sacrifice is protected by the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, Santería seems to have become the usual suspect. Though it prefers the Lukumi name, Babalu Aye is a Santerían church.

The nature of the animal remains found in Newport Beach suggested they were religious sacrifices rather than sadistic acts of animal cruelty. But it struck me as knee-jerk for police to ascribe them to Santería.

The Rev. Miguel A. De La Torre is a scholar with a doctorate in religion from Temple University and a Master of Divinity from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Now a Christian, he grew up in a home where Santería was practiced.

De La Torre teaches at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver and is the author of “Santería: The Beliefs and Rituals of a Growing Religion in America.”

I asked him if he thought the remains likely came from Santería sacrifices.

“I’m not willing to make that decision myself,” he said because there are many forms of orisha worship and some have adopted rituals drawn from Santería.

Arizona independent scholar Mary Ann Clark also thinks the remains “could be” tied to Santería but not necessarily.

Clark wrote “Santería: Correcting the Myths and Uncovering the Realities of a Growing Religion” and also “Where Men Are Wives and Mothers Rule: Santería Ritual Practices and Their Gender Implications.”

Clark noted that a chicken found buried in a jar along with peppers and a broth smelling strongly of vinegar sounded like a “spell,” but a spell that could be attributed to “any number of types of [religious] groups, including but not limited to Santería.”

Though when it comes to spells, Santería engages in them only to break curses created by adherents of cousin religions, such as Palo, said De La Torre, or an entirely different religion such as Brujería, which is witchcraft.

De La Torre sees a danger in stereotyping those who practice Santería as “primitive people doing primitive acts.”

And characterizing the sacrifices as tortures or mutilations, he said, is patently inaccurate.

“Mutilating the animals just does not occur,” he said, following the statement with an incredulous laugh.

“The animal is a sacrifice; you don’t mutilate a sacrifice to the gods,” he explained. “If you do, then the sacrifice becomes blemished.”

In considering whether Santería’s animal sacrifices are somehow more depraved than others, he posed an analogy.

“I’m a Christian,” he said, “so as a Christian, when I sit down to have my turkey dinner and I give thanks to God for the meal I’m about to have, what’s the difference between that and what Santería is doing, especially in the case when the animal is consumed?”

The difference, as he sees it, boils down to this: “[As a Christian] I’m not sacrificing the animal; I’m having the factory do it for me.”

Police reports of the animal remains found throughout Newport Beach noted no evidence of either torture or mutilation of any of the animals while they were alive.

Clark described the methods of killing used in Santería sacrifices. Small animals may be decapitated, she said.

The neck of fowls may be rung — “more or less the method our grandparents used when most people lived on the farm,” Clark said. Slicing the jugular kills larger animals in seconds by bleeding them to death.

“Any pain inflicted is accidental and not an intentional part of the process,” she said.

The only real beef De La Torre sees society having with Santería is related to the disposal of the carcasses of animals when they are not consumed after a sacrifice.

He describes how in Miami, where Santería is prevalent, city employees have to clean carcasses from the courthouse steps every morning.

“Decaying carcasses may create a problem,” he said. “Of all the concerns, that might be the only one that needs to be dealt with.”

Until we’re ready to outlaw the killing of animals for sport, for food and for other by-products, I agree.

MICHÈLE MARR is a freelance writer from Huntington Beach. She can be reached at [email protected].