PETA’s extreme methods of achieving its goals cause more harm than help for the animal rights movement

This article is part of a PRO/CON opinion piece on PETA. To view the opposing side, see here.

Friday, March 19, 2010

By John Burke
Opinion Editor

Throughout history, animals have been useful to mankind. Providing clothes, food, companionship and other necessities, animals are an unquestionable need to humanity. While most acknowledge this thankfully, some have grown overzealous and see animals as more than providers, rather as equals to humans.

This unreasonable belief has been furthered under the guise of animal “rights” by organizations such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. PETA’s members reject the idea that humans are superior to animals and claim that humans have no right to use animals for food, clothing, or entertainment.

Most would consider this agenda a harmless one. After all, who can argue with the idea of treating animals well? But in its perhaps well-intentioned attempts, it has become associated with a radical fringe that is not only dangerous to its own cause, but dangerous to the American way of life.

Since its foundation, PETA has been known to take confrontational actions to force animal rights on the public. It has attacked American food chains as being cruel to animals with campaigns like “Murder King” and “Kentucky Fried Cruelty,” which paint a portrait of the fast food industry as a genocidal monster which kills animals for money.

There are few that would argue against humane methods for animal slaughter, but PETA’s campaigns often end up alienating those whose help they need. By portraying corporations as mass murderers, it gives them no incentive to work with a group that is so ardently against them.

In recent years, PETA has worded its opposition to poor treatment of animals in insulting ways. It has equated slaughtering chickens to the Holocaust and dairy farms to African-American slavery. These outrageous comparisons have drawn the disgust of many, including the NAACP, who asked PETA to refrain from that comparison. PETA complied, but serious damage was done to the their movement.

PETA also has no scruples about with working with dangerous groups. It openly supports the Animal Liberation Front, which is considered a terrorist group by the Department of Homeland Security for its actions, which include bombings and threats against those who they perceive as being cruel to animals.

Few would argue with the concept of treating animals well. In 2008, California voters passed Proposition 2, which prohibited small cages for farm animals. These kinds of initiatives are what the animal rights movement should be doing to further its cause, in non-controversial steps that work in a gradual method.

PETA’s all-or-nothing activism demanding humans to accept an alternate lifestyle is unrealistic. If the animal rights movement wishes to attain its goals, it must turn away from destructive organizations such as PETA and moderate its approach.

is unrealistic. If the animal rights movement wishes to attain its goal, it must abandon destructive organizations such as PETA and moderate its approach to accomplish its intended aims.