I can't answer for the veg community at large, but I can tell you what my own opinions are. For me, making more humane choices in my life has been a progression.
I started out reducing meat in my diet for health reasons -- a long-time IBS sufferer. That was 7 years ago. As I noticed how much better I felt physically, I also began learning more about the way "food animals" are treated. I came to see that hurting animals just for the sake of filling our stomachs was so wrong, and I didn't want to eat the flesh of another being that had suffered so much so needlessly. I read "Diet for a New America," and it opened my eyes to the horrors of factory farming. I joined PETA...started to volunteer for the Humane Society, and hubby and I adopted our first guinea pigs.
Currently, I am lacto-vegetarian and working very hard to get dairy out of my diet. The suffering of dairy cows is as bad or worse than animals raised for food, and I don't want to contribute to that kind of senseless cruelty either. At the same time, my feelings about eating animals in general has deepened...it's not just about the ethics of factory farming any more, but rather the whole spiritual issue of consuming another living, feeling being who has as much right to live and be happy as I do. So, no; even if they are raised on a farm where they can romp and play and graze, and the matter of "cruelty" is completely removed from the equation, I still choose not to eat animals.
As for bugs...I'll just say that I don't like killing insects, and try not to make a habit of it. I'm terrified of spiders, though, and have a very hard time when I find one in the house. But I do try to relocate other critters. I have moved wasps, crickets, ants, and other bugs back outside, and even hubby has gotten into the habit of trying to rescue the occasional bug. Mice I'll confess have met a not-so-happy ending with me in the past, but I'm making an effort now to keep "humane" traps in the house, despite being even more afraid of them than spiders -- which makes little sense, considering that we also have a pet hamster. Maybe it's the tail.
As I said, living humanely is a progression.
