Beating a Dead Horse

Somebody once told me that I was beating a dead horse.  I calmly explained to him that as I have taken an oath of peace not to hurt any living animal, I am therefore reduced to only harm dead animals, but that was neither here nor there as at that moment I was not harming anything, either alive or dead, and that he should learn to show better tolerance of other people's beliefs.  Some people are just so narrow-minded.