It is illegal to fight dogs or hit your girlfriend. Yet only one garners cries for your ouster from your team.

What is the American double-standard that allows Warren Moon to play every game while he is on trial for spousal abuse, but generates story after story calling for Quarterback Michael Vick to be suspended?

If you haven't been paying attention to the news for the past six weeks, you may have missed that an NFL quarterback has been indicted for his involvement in a dog-fighting ring. Some of the fights were apparently held on his property.

But *last* summer, when Brett Myers, a baseball player, assaulted his wife, witnesses said he slapped her then pulled her off the ground by her hair. There was no outcry, no request that Myers be suspended, no distress that a 240-pound ballplayer had beaten his 120-pound wife on a public street.

At the time, a major league baseball spokesman said, "`We're obviously very concerned about it. But it was an off-field incident and it's the player's private life. We're going to let the legal system run its course."

When Warren Moon, another NFL quarterback, was on trial for assaulting his wife, he did not miss any games. His arrest during football season did not result in any suspensions or calls for his ouster.

Over the years, the line we've drawn about violence has shifted. Many of us believe today, that if a child tortures and kills pets, it is predictive of future torture and killing of human beings. So we try to "cure" or "punish" this behavior sooner, rather than writing it off as something we can't (and shouldn't) control.

It makes sense that in 2007, there would be a louder outcry about abuse of animals than we have ever heard before.

In the past, wives, slaves, and pets were simply chattel. Whatever you did to them was legal. (Unless, of course, you were too blatant about killing your wife.) Today that is not true about wives or pets. Slavery has been outlawed completely. The line has shifted dramatically.

My concern is that the public perception has moved unequally. Women *are* still seen as somehow deserving what they get, because "spouses can leave". Animals may be more helpless, but are they more innocent?

I agree that this guy has crossed the line. I agree that someone who behaves like this probably belongs in jail. But my concern is with the hypocrisy of the media and the public who call for sanctions when innocent animals are involved, but not when innocent wives and children are.

More US households have pets than have children. (Thanks, Census Bureau for arcane factoids for bloggers to throw around). Perhaps there are simply more people who feel strongly about animals they don't know than people they don't know.

I'm not siding with the Humane Society on this one. Until people are at least as well defended as pets, I'm going continue to advocate for the under-woman, not the under-dog.