Has PETA Crossed the Line, Using Fat People to Save the Whales?

Will PETA ever cross the line in bad boy and girl behavior? Throwing dead animals on Anna Wintour’s plate seems crass but forgiveable, in a “most of us can appreciate the moment” sort of wry smile.

Greeting Happy Fries kids with a knife-wielding Ronald McDonald and a bloody rubber chicken will surely cause a few bad dreams and confused, bad-child guilt, thanks to PETA’s “McCruelty Campaign”.

PETA’s strategy has always been one of confronting the truth about the connection between food and the animals ending up on our dinner plates — or the Chicken McCruelty box, as PETA calls it.

Growing numbers of  nonvegetarians agree that people have a responsibility to treat animals ethically. America’s “hear no evil, see no evil” attitudes seem to be causing irreparable and unnecessary harm on multiple fronts.

The Onion on PETA’s Women

This Onion video takes a ‘humorous’ look at PETA’s treatment of women in its ad campaigns. Given my professional credentials, I’m slightly jaded here and do find the video amusing.

How about fat women? Is there any point at which PETA truly crosses the line?

PETA Save the Whales Fat People Campaign

In its Jacksonville, Fla campaign PETA reminds people that America’s obesity epidemic is not only a national health problem, but an animal rights issue as well. Women especially are demanding an apology from PETA, for having crossed the line in exhibiting no empathy for fat people.

The association between whales and blubber also isn’t a primary one. Saving whales is one focus; vegetarianism, resulting in weight loss, is another.

PETA’s counter claim to accusations of insensitivity is that fat people exhibit no concern for their own health, animals, Mother Earth and thin people who will pay the healthcare tab for their over-eating ways. Bottom line, whether you love PETA or hate them, we are all interconnected citizens of Planet Earth, and PETA constantly tries to make that point in their “confrontations”.

The whole purpose of Anne of Carversville is to inspire (not shame) us into reconnecting with Mother Nature and our own sensuality. I find us totally estranged from both for many reasons.

It’s not clear that shame tactics work either.

At what point are my own rights curtailed by PETA’s rights to free expression? The law’s pretty clearly on PETA’s side in the debate. 40% of Huff Po readers agree that the PETA’s new ad is “horribly offensive, and totally turns me off from their cause.” 20% responded “whatever works”.

In my own life, I don’t have an obesity challenge — now. But I have accepted the responsibility that — like it or not — I must connect the dots between my eating habits and the rest of the planet, as well as the health of my own body.

PETA is totally not politically correct in our pc American world. I think that’s what annoys people the most about the organization. Anne

Original article: PETA’s New “Save the Whales” Billboard Takes Aim at Fat Women Huffington Post

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