The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is an organization that spends most of its time making animal rights activists look like out of touch nutter butters and waging wacky wars for dubious reasons.
So, how ridiculous does PETA get around these parts?
A Roadside Memorial for Dead Chickens Last month an 18-wheeler overturned in Bryan, Texas, killing many of the thousands of chickens in their travel cages. Is that sad? Well sure, but PETA has petitioned the Texas Department of Transportation to erect a 10 ft. roadside memorial to our fallen delicious feathered friends. This, according to PETA, will serve as a reminder to Texas drivers that eating meat means that accidents like this will continue to happen. This is actually a pretty common tactic by PETA, who successfully erected a roadside memorial in Madison, Wisconsin to dead cows.
The Death Penalty Ad Also last month PETA put up more vegan-pushing propaganda in the form of a billboard showing a pig behind bars. The caption reads, "Not everyone on death row has committed a crime." Their aim was to showcase the often cruel conditions animals suffer in the meat industry.
Again, worthy cause. We should look into that. However, considering that Texas has the third largest number of exonerated prisoners from death row in the country, you can understand why the campaign wasn't met with the greatest amount of joy. I feel bad for the bacon, but I feel worse for the guy doing time for a crime he didn't commit but was convicted for.
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Dressing Models in Leaves In April this year PETA's campaign against meat took on another interesting turn. Standing at the corner of Milam and Congress, they used spray adhesive to clothe a model in collard green leaves. At this point PETA has pretty much become nothing but the militant wing of veganism, bent on telling us that it is the only ethical path for humanity. I'm not sure why ripping plants apart and draping a human body in them isn't murder, but I'm guessing it's because plants don't scream.
Go Vegan For Jesus In 2012 Lakewood church pastor Joel Osteen said what many prominent Christians and other leaders in the Abrahamic faiths have said before; no pork. Where the provision comes from is disputed, and the theories run from pigs being a poor economical investment in the Middle East to the fact that pork and human flesh are said to be similar in taste and texture. Whatever the reason, lots of people don't eat pork for religious reasons and have done so for thousands of years.
PETA didn't see it that way, though, and offered Osteen a banner for his church that read, "Blessed are the merciful. Go Vegan." The banner also came with an offer to prepare a faux-ham Easter dinner for all the Lakewood parishioners. Needless to say, Osteen did not take them up on the offer.
Protested Bigfoot Hunting In January of this year professional sideshow presenter Rick Dyer paraded a fake corpse of Bigfoot that he claimed he had shot in San Antonio all around the country, making tens of thousands of dollars in the process and furthering driving this reporter to drink. What I missed in my original coverage of those shenanigans was that PETA apparently got involved as well.
According to the Houston Chronicle, though the organization did not say they believed in Bigfoot they felt that even the alleged shooting was wrong.
"The bottom line is, when someone sees a rare, exotic animal their first instinct shouldn't be to shoot and kill it," said PETA spokesperson Lindsay Rajt. "Just because you see something pretty, that doesn't mean it should be mounted on your wall."
Luckily for PETA, the corpse of Bigfoot was a nothing but a construct by a duped mask maker. I don't know for sure if the fake was one hundred percent vegan, but at least it wasn't shot in the woods.
Jef has a new story, a tale of headless strippers and The Rolling Stones, available now in Broken Mirrors, Fractured Minds. You can also connect with him on Facebook.