On May 17 the United States officially became a whaling nation, having granted a "cultural exemption" to the international ban on whaling to a tribe that until that day had not hunted whales since 1926. In a land of many subcultures, we ought to respect diversity, but not at the cost of flouting society's most fundamental values and policies. Steven Zak is an attorney and writer. He has written about animals and the law for many publications including The Atlantic Monthly and The New York Times.

Off the coast of Washington state, about 150 miles west of Seattle, three men stand atop a 34-ton Pacific gray whale they have just killed with a harpoon and a high-powered rifle. Their kill was legally sanctioned. As of May 17, the United States is now officially a whaling nation.

The whalers were Makah Indians. With the assistance of the Clinton administration, the tribe won a "cultural exemption" to the international ban on whaling in 1997 -- although they had harmed no whales since 1926.

The federal Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) is supposed to protect whales. Instead, in a perverse twist, the Coast Guard used the law to justify forcing protest boats to shore for "harassing" the whale, thereby freeing the hunters to slaughter the 34-ton creature with no interference.

The Act does make an exception for Alaskan natives who can show a subsistence need for whaling. Even then, killing the largest being on earth is hard to justify. But the exception does not apply to these young whale hunters from Washington, who had never experienced whaling in their lifetimes.

Instead, the tribe claims the right to kill whales under a treaty signed with the United States in 1855 -- the only treaty between the U.S. and a tribe providing for whaling rights.

The archaic nature of that treaty is clear from its wording. Though Americans now are enjoined from harming whales, the treaty provides whaling rights to the tribe "in common with all citizens of the United States." Like other contracts declared unenforceable in the light of modern sensibilities -- such as those preventing a homeowner from selling to certain races -- that treaty provision ought to be abrogated. The courts have held that Congress has the right to unilaterally abrogate Indian treaty provisions by making its intentions to do so clear in legislation.

By sanctioning and assisting in whale killing here, the U.S. has encouraged whalers worldwide -- in contravention of this country's policy.

At the 1997 meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) the Japanese, who have long claimed a "cultural" interest in whaling, renewed demands for whaling quotas for themselves. At that meeting, the deputy chairman of the IWC proposed that commercial whaling be resumed.

Japan has encouraged whaling among various tribes by offering money and whale-killing training. In 1996, thirteen Canadian tribes stated an intention to resume whaling if the Makah were granted their cultural exemption. Those tribes have worked openly with Japan and Norway to form the "World Council of Whalers."

U.S. officials have long expressed a deeply held American perspective on whales. In 1977, President Carter told the IWC that whales are no longer "viewed as a product from the sea available to those with the technology for their harvest." Six years earlier Interior Secretary Walter Hinkel put all the great whales on the Endangered Species List, noting that "it would be a crime beyond belief if in the same decade we walked on the moon we also destroyed the largest animal there ever was."

We shouldn't hesitate to demand that our deepest values be respected within our borders. No cultural exemption to laws against beating women would be granted to men from a country where such an act has cultural roots. No exemption to laws against the abuse of children would ever be tolerated. The U.S. government should act to reverse its shameful complicity in whaling within sight of the Washington coastline. Congress ought to amend the MMPA so that it explicitly abrogates whaling treaty rights and should make clear to the IWC that U.S. support for the would-be whalers in Washington was a mistake.

The world may go on killing whales, but Americans have a right to demand that our leaders not make us accomplices.