People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals: Encyclopedia II - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals - Campaigns

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals - Campaigns

PETA is well known for its aggressive media campaigns, public demonstrations, and attacks on large corporations for their alleged mistreatment of animals. In 2003, PETA received media attention for its boycott of Kentucky Fried Chicken. PETCO and Procter & Gamble are other examples of companies PETA says are exploiting animals for profit. According to PETA, PETCO confines animals in filthy enclosures, where they are commonly left to die, and Procter & Gamble tests its products on animals. On April 12, 2005, PETA announced it had ended its boycott against PETCO, in part because of PETCO's decision to end sales of large birds in its stores.

Jesus was a Vegetarian

Several PETA commercials have used Christian themes to promote vegetarianism, including one claiming that Jesus was a vegetarian, and another featuring a pig with the caption "He Died for Your Sins." [14] Some Christian leaders, such as the Reverend Andrew Linzey, support some of these ideas, but mainstream theologians cite passages in the Christian Bible that support the view that Jesus ate fish and lamb. [15]

Lettuce Ladies

PETA's 'Lettuce Ladies' are women, some of them Playboy models, who appear publicly in scanty costumes made to look like lettuce leaves, and distribute information about the vegan diet. [16] There is a lesser-known male counterpart to the Lettuce Ladies, called the Broccoli Boys.

Holocaust on Your Plate

One of the most controversial PETA campaigns was their Holocaust on Your Plate campaign. In it PETA claimed that: "like the Jews murdered in concentration camps, animals are terrorized when they are housed in huge filthy warehouses and rounded up for shipment to slaughter. The leather sofa and handbag are the moral equivalent of the lampshades made from the skins of people killed in the death camps. [17]."

The Anti-Defamation League strongly criticized the implication of moral equivalence between the killing of animals and the Holocaust. A press release from the ADL stated:

PETA's effort to seek approval for their Holocaust on Your Plate campaign is outrageous, offensive and takes chutzpah to new heights. Rather than deepen our revulsion against what the Nazis did to the Jews, the project will undermine the struggle to understand the Holocaust and to find ways to make sure such catastrophes never happen again.

PETA defended the comparison, saying that "the logic and methods employed in factory farms and slaughterhouses are analogous to those used in concentration camps." PETA argued that in both the Holocaust and animal slaughter, there is a systematic "concept of other cultures or other species as deficient and thus disposable, and that this indifference allows the slaughter to continue." [18]. PETA also claimed the moral support of Holocaust survivor and Nobel Prize winning author Isaac Bashevis Singer, and used his statement "In relation to [animals] all humans are Nazis; for them it is an eternal Treblinka". The use of this quote in this context was supported by Singer's grandson Stephen J. Dujack. [19] In May 2005, PETA apologized for the campaign while broadly defending the analogy. The campaign however continues in areas such as San Francisco

Name changes of cities

PETA regularly asks towns and cities whose names are suggestive of animal exploitation to change their names. In April 2003, they offered free veggie burgers to the city of Hamburg in exchange for changing its name. PETA also campaigned in 1996 to have the town of Fishkill, New York change its name, claiming the name suggests cruelty to fish. (The root "kill", found in many New York town names, is Dutch for "creek".) These campaigns have been effective in generating media coverage of animal-rights issues.

Anti-fur campaigns

PETA may be best known for its long-running campaign, "I'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur", in which activists and celebrities appear partially nude to express their opposition to fur-wearing. This tactic has resulted in widespread media coverage.

Campaigns targeting children

PETA also has a campaign "Your mommy kills animals," targeted at children, using graphic images of a woman killing a rabbit. [20] PETA also has a similar campaign "Your Daddy Kills Animals!" featuring graphic images of a man killing a fish, along with a warning to children that states, "Until your daddy learns that it's not "fun" to kill, keep your doggies and kitties away from him. He's so hooked on killing defenseless animals that they could be next!". [21]

Comparisons to slavery

The most recent controversy generated by PETA is its "Are Animals the New Slaves?" campaign. [22] The campaign involves a tour of the United States and featured a display in which images of black people who had been lynched were juxtaposed with those of slaughtered cows [23]. The campaign was criticised by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People [24], and PETA suspended the campaign [25], though African-American activist and legendary comedian Dick Gregory would go on to explicitly state in a PETA campaign that when he saw animals in cages, "slavery" was the only word that came to mind. PETA's 2004 IRS form 990 shows that on March 30th of that year, PETA gave Dick Gregory $3,000[26] to support program activities.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Campaigns", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki