State Rep. Manny Rutinel, in since-deleted posts made nearly a decade ago on the social media site Reddit, voiced support for a movement that aims to put animals on the same legal footing as humans and in turn prohibit their slaughter for food and other uses.
Rutinel, a Democrat running to represent Colorado’s toss-up 8th Congressional District, envisioned a future in which so-called animal liberation legislation would be adopted.
“Veganism will grow at a gradual pace, farmers will produce fewer farm animals to meet the decreased demand,” he posted in 2017. “The fewer animals that are left living by the time an animal liberation amendment arrives will spend the remainder of their lives happily in either an animal sanctuary or be kept as a pet.”
The Reddit posts analyzed by The Colorado Sun are the latest evidence of Rutinel’s yearslong animal rights activism, which continued up until he was appointed to a seat in the state legislature in 2023. The posts also show just how ardent Rutinel was in his beliefs.
But Rutinel, a former vegan, says he no longer holds his most impassioned animal rights beliefs, which were inspired by a documentary he watched when he was 14.
“The views that I put in those posts when I was 22 are not my views today,” said Rutinel, now 31. “Those are the views of a 22-year-old kid. I’ve grown a lot, and I’m glad that I have.”
In an interview with The Sun, he added: “Getting older means getting more information and more experience than when you were younger. And I’ve been able to learn a lot.”
His changing views on meat could be politically helpful: The 8th District, which spans Denver’s northeast suburbs into Greeley, is arguably Colorado’s agricultural capital.
It’s filled with ranches, feedlots and dairy farms, which generated about $1.2 billion in animal products in 2022. The district is also home to a JBS meatpacking facility in Greeley, one of the nation’s largest beef slaughterhouses.
What Rutinel posted on Reddit
Here are some of the animal rights remarks Rutinel made on Reddit:
- “Can’t we all just adopt a r/vegan lifestyle already? Why can’t we see how horribly future generations will see what we do to innocent animals?”
- “I gave up animal flesh 8 years ago at the age of 14 when I truly made the connection of the horrific reality that our meat comes from tortured and slaughtered innocent animals.”
- He encouraged people to feed their dogs a vegan diet. “If you would like to reduce suffering even more, then please consider looking into vegan dog food as well. Making vegan dog food can save you a considerable amount of money in the long run. Dogs are omnivores and can live long and happy lives by just eating plant foods.”
- He posted that after animal liberation legislation is passed, all remaining agricultural animals “will be taken to sanctuaries.”
The term “animal liberation” stems from a 1975 book by the philosopher Peter Singer, who argued that animals shouldn’t be used by people for food or other things. Rutinel, in speaking with The Sun, wouldn’t elaborate on the specifics of his beliefs when he made the Reddit posts. Asked if it was his belief when he made the Reddit posts that animals should be treated like humans under the law, and thus not slaughtered for food, he did not directly answer.
“I saw a documentary when I was 14 — I was a literal child,” said Rutinel, who didn’t recall the name of the documentary. “I decided that what I saw in those videos wasn’t something I wanted to participate in, and I threw myself at it the way teenagers do. I’m not embarrassed that I cared about these things. I’ve just learned a lot since I was younger.”
Rutinel, who lives in Commerce City, said he can’t pinpoint exactly when his views on animal agriculture changed.
“I haven’t been a vegan for several years,” he said, adding that he now eats meat.
But Rutinel was talking about his animal rights activism up until he started in the legislature.
Talking to students at the University of Denver’s law school in October 2023, a few days after he won a vacancy appointment to a seat in the state legislature, he said the way animals are treated as part of agricultural processes was one of the reasons he decided to get involved in politics. And during the speech, he called a pair of 2024 Denver ballot measures that would have banned fur sales and slaughterhouses in the city “really awesome.” (Both initiatives were rejected by voters.)
As a student at Yale Law School in 2021, he was quoted in a campus publication saying “animal agriculture is a horrific, exploitative industry.”
“The globe must dramatically shift away from animal products and toward fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains and nuts,” Rutinel told a legislative committee in Connecticut in 2021, citing a report on climate change.
As for what changed his mind, Rutinel told The Sun it was conversations with people who work in animal agriculture.
“I’ve just gotten to chat with folks who are producing these foods at farmers markets,” he said. “I’ve chatted with ranchers themselves. I’ve gotten to see that they are taking care of their animals. They are stewarding their water. They’re doing other good practices, like rotating their grazing.”
Rutinel said he is absolutely not now trying to prevent other people from eating meat and that he wants people to judge him for his actions as a state representative and not his nearly decade-old Reddit posts . He points out that he’s been endorsed by United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7, the union representing workers at the JBS plant in Greeley, as well as the United Farm Workers.
“I’ve got a strong record of working for ranchers,” he said. “When I was in the legislature, I fought to stop foreign entities from buying American farmland. I expanded Colorado’s agricultural future loan program. I protected state-grown products from false advertising.”
JBS has been accused by animal-welfare groups of mistreating animals.
“I am not aware of any concerns about their treatment of animals in Colorado,” Rutinel said in a statement.
A broader string of changing positions
Rutinel’s new stance on animal agriculture didn’t develop in a vacuum. He’s also changed his positions on hydraulic fracturing, student debt and healthcare since announcing his bid to represent the 8th District.
In late May, Rutinel said in an interview with The Colorado Sun for an 8th District voter guide that he opposes a ban on fracking and does not support canceling all student debt. He also backed a public health insurance option, but not Medicare for All, which is generally regarded as how single-payer healthcare would operate in the U.S. if it was adopted.
Last year, in an interview with a liberal political group, Rutinel said he supported banning fracking, canceling student debt and enacting a single-payer healthcare system.
When asked how voters could trust that Rutinel’s positions now won’t change again in the future, he encouraged voters to look at his track record in the state legislature.
“My fundamental values have not changed,” he said. “I’m looking to fight for working people, and my track record has proven that time and time again.”
Rutinel’s opponent in November, Republican U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans of Fort Lupton, has similarly faced scrutiny over his statements and positions when he was younger.
Evans wrote a letter to the editor in 2004, when he was 17 years old, in which he called same-sex marriage a “bad idea” that would have a “terrible effect … on our society.” He wrote that allowing gay marriage would open the door to polygamy, parents being able to marry their children, and siblings being able to marry each other, as well as incest, pederasty and bestiality.
“If gay marriages are allowed, the institution of marriage will have been redefined to include all of the perverted and immoral practices mentioned above,” Evans wrote.
Those statements prompted attack ads from Democrats during the 2024 election cycle.
Evans told The Sun at the time that his views had changed over the previous 20 years and that he neither wants to ban gay marriage nor wants to invalidate existing same-sex marriages. He said he planned to vote “yes” on a November 2024 ballot measure that would have stripped a prohibition on same-sex marriage from the Colorado Constitution and supports the Respect for Marriage Act passed in 2022, which requires the federal government to recognize same-sex and interracial marriage.
“I was a 17-year-old kid,” Evans said of when he wrote the letter. “I’d held my driver’s license for maybe a year at that point. I wasn’t even old enough to vote. I’d never even had a girlfriend at that point in my life. Since then, I’ve done a lot of things. I’ve matured a lot.”
He added: “There’s a lot of things that 38-year-old Gabe disagrees with 17-year-old Gabe about.”