The carriage horses in New York are powerful spirits, they have awakened people who love animals to the great and urgent need for a dialogue about the future of animals in our world. Sadly, this dialogue is not possible today with the people who call themselves supporters of animal rights. They have a kind of Stalinist approach to free speech; they do not believe in dialogue, only confrontation and anger and a kind of fanatical absolutism. Their ally in New York City – a powerful mayor – has adopted their approach, which means the people we would expect to be eager to talk about animals and their rights and welfare will not.

The owner of a horse rescue farm told me this week that she mentioned in an online forum that she didn’t think the carriage horses were abused – she knows horse abuse very well. She said every single person in the forum who belonged to an animal rights group unfriended  her on Facebook, removed her from their contact lists, refused to answer her e-mails again, and each one told her they would no longer communicate with her or help her raise money for her needy horses, since that was her position.

She became a non-person, a label familiar to the carriage drivers. She says she has never mentioned the carriage horses again.

The animal rights groups in New York have gone too far in their long and ugly crusade against the carriage horses. They have lied too often, taken too much money under false pretenses (if they fear anything, it ought to be some ambitious young state attorney general investigating the claims they have made against the carriage horses to solicit staggering amounts of money online), made too many claims that are easily disproven, and been far too cruel and abusive to people.

In New York City, a great stage, too many people  have gone to seek the truth for themselves – veterinarians, animal lovers, writers, journalists, equine associations, behaviorists, horse trainers, residents, actors, even a well known and much loved fashion model. They have found a radically different truth than the one presented for so long and so loudly by the animal rights groups seeking to ban the horses.

There is great unease and confusion about this controversy among people who care about animals. For the first time I am getting messages from animal rights advocates who are troubled by it, and afraid to say so publicly. They believe the horses are well cared for, and that there are many animals In New York and beyond in real need of rescue and assistance.

Patty Adjamine is a long-time and committed animal rights activist who has rescued many thousands of truly abused and neglected animals in New York City and believes her movement has gone too far on the carriage horse issue. She does not believe the carriage horses should be banned and has lost many friends in the animal rights movement. One of the saddest characteristics of this movement, in New York City and elsewhere, is it’s refusal to consider dissent or accept any kind of deviance or disagreement. The animals suffer for that.

If anyone in the animal rights world opposes the ban on the carriage horses, they themselves are instantly banned and ostracized, the animal rights websites block any kind of disagreement or challenge. But people like Adjamine have nonetheless begun a real dialogue about the future of animals in New York and in the world, they seek to define the real rights and welfare of animals. This is the dialogue that needs to happen if animals like the carriage horses have any chance of surviving in our world.

What constitutes abuse? Is it an argument or opinion, or is it a carefully defined crime? How can animals be kept in our suburbs and cities, where most Americans live, rather than be banned and confined to rescue farms and the preserves of the wealthy? How can government encourage the adoption and proper care of animals rather than their disappearance? How can we support the many people struggling in a difficult economy to keep their animals and care for them? I cannot help thinking of that hideous and  instantly unpopular vintage electric car prototype NYClass paid $500,000 to develop as a replacement for horse carriages in New York City? I can’t  help but wonder how many truly needy animals – those without shelter, regulation, vacations, sweet feed and 1,000 separate regulations – might have been helped or saved with that money.

In a rational world, and for the sake of animals, the mayor and the animal rights groups would be sitting down today with the people in the carriage trade to find ways of making the horse’s lives even better and safer – warning signs, new stables, traffic lines, grazing areas in the park – rather than attacking them in cruel, often vicious, ways. In this case, it seems the dialogue must begin around them, and Patty Adjamine is brave, even heroic for trying to begin one on her interesting blog. She has real credibility with me – she lives her passion –  and I would be eager to listen to her ideas for keeping animals in our world.

For animals to remain in the world, people and animals must be considered as one. Animal supporters cannot simply use animals as a pretext for battering human beings and call that animal rights. Animals that live and work with people – just consider dogs and cats – survive and thrive in our world. Animals that don’t vanish from the earth. It happens every day.

Of course, people who love animals will always talk about helping them, will always listen for ways to heal them and keeping them alive and among us.

So the carriage horses are more powerful than anyone imagined. The Sioux are right about them, they are powerful spirits, they are calling to us to keep them in our world, to listen to one another and treat each other with dignity and respect. They have turned back this ill-considered effort to ban them from the city and have sparked the beginnings of a desperately needed and genuine dialogue about their future, and the future of our bleeding world.