Attending social events where animal foods are served?

Some people say it is wrong to attend social events where animal foods are served.
The reasoning goes like this: 
"There was also a pertinent point about our sitting around "happily eating where animals lie mutilated and dead all around us" - which I'm sure we all do from time to time at social events (although, in my case, not at all "happily" - but, I do sometimes do it). Whereas we wouldn't happily associate with a known rapist at such social events. Should we continue to participate in these events (although it is very hard not to, with dead animals being all around us in society)?"

My position:
I think we may attend those events to educate others about Abolitionist veganism and human rights. To educate people in a way so that they understand that what they are doing is wrong - that they are participating in causing unnecessary harm to sentient beings.
I think that it is sad when people attend these events without educating others - just sitting silent when others are participating in animal exploitation. I have also failed here. Everyone has alot to learn.

People are commiting injustices everywhere. We should stand up to stop it. One way to do this is to attend events, and through conversations educating others about what they do is harming and killing animals unnecessarily.

We live in a world where people also express lots of racism and sexism; and people fighting for human rights still attend events where participants are racists and sexists. So in that respect I don't think their point is valid.
The Abolitionists against human slavery attended events were many people attended that were slave owners, etc...

More reading: 

• Abolitionist veganism - articles, arguments and refutations of objections

Violence is always wrong and does not help to end animal exploitation

If we want the animal exploitation to end:

"Putting aside the moral/spiritual aspects of violence [see e.g.: http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/a-comment-on-violence/ ], .. Institutional users engage in animal exploitation because the public demands it. Institutional users are, for the most part, indifferent to whether they are selling beef or bananas. They will put their capital wherever they’ll get the best return.

Most people regard animal use as “normal” in the same sense that breathing and drinking water are considered as “normal.” They demand animal products. If you destroy ten slaughterhouses today, as long as demand remains, ten more slaughterhouses will be built or ten existing ones will expand production (and probably make production more economically efficient). If you shut down a supplier of animals used for vivisection, and the public continues to support vivisection, which it clearly does, then another supplier will emerge. So as a purely practical matter, violence is a strategy that cannot work.

As long as animal use is regarded as normal and as not raising a fundamental moral question, nothing will ever change. But we are not going to get people to think about animal use through intimidation, fear, and acts of violence. Education, if it is to be effective, can never be violent; it can never seek to intimidate or make people fearful. It must open their hearts and their minds. The non-violent strategy is anything but passive; it involves our working actively, constantly, and creatively to shift a fundamental paradigm—the notion that animals are things, resources, property; that they are exclusively means to human ends."
Read more here: http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/on-violence/#.UWF3hcpEBKY