Pious PETA Says ‘For Christ's Sake — Go Veggie!'

March 25, 2004

A controversial animal rights group recently staged a demonstration featuring a 10-foot-tall "Jesus" model in London at the opening of "The Passion of the Christ" movie, asking film maker and actor Mel Gibson to show "compassion" to animals.

A press release issued by the group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) read that the "Jesus" model would "rise above the crowd at the opening of ‘The Passion of the Christ' to protest the suffering of animals raised and killed for food on ranches like Mel Gibson's in Montana, and to encourage moviegoers to adopt a diet that is respectful of all God's creation."

Also part of the demonstration were "people holding signs reading, ‘For Christ's Sake—Go Veggie!,' ‘Blessed Are the Merciful' and ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill,' as well as activists handing out vegetarian starter kits and leaflets titled ‘Honoring All of God's Creation.'"

A request for comment to Gibson's Icon Productions was not immediately answered.

PETA has also used the same demonstration tactic across the United States at the premieres of "The Passion of the Christ" in San Francisco, Seattle and Washington.

Apparently comparing the suffering experienced by Jesus in His final moments of agony to the suffering endured by animals, the release read that "‘The Passion of the Christ' focuses on Jesus' suffering in the final hours of his life. PETA wants everyone who eats meat to consider that suffering is an everyday reality for cows and other animals on farms and feedlots and, ultimately, in abattoirs. Cows are routinely dehorned and males are castrated without pain relief, deprived of their young and treated as commodities. As whistle blowers and veterinarian inspectors have attested, abattoir workers often resort to scalding, skinning and dismembering fully conscious animals in order to keep production lines moving."

In an e-mail interview, PETA spokesman William Rivas-Rivas said that PETA is neither trying to insult Christians with its message or be in any way blasphemous.

He said, "PETA is demonstrating because we want people to know that eating meat promotes gratuitous cruelty and suffering. We're asking people who oppose violence and injustice to extend their compassion to all God's creatures by adopting a vegetarian diet. More than 25 billion animals are killed for food every year in the United States. Pigs, cows, and chickens are individuals with feelings—they can feel love, happiness, loneliness, and fear, just as dogs, cats, and people do."

Rivas-Rivas added, "What is unsettling is that Christians, who follow the prince of peace, would support cruelty to animals every time they sit down to eat. There is nothing disrespectful about calling people to be more compassionate and merciful. This is Jesus' message. What is disrespectful and heretical is the way God's creatures are treated on factory farms and in slaughterhouses."

Every time Christians sit down to eat they have a choice, Rivas-Rivas said.

"(They can) add to the level of violence, misery, and death in the world, or to attempt to live peacefully with all God's creation. Everyone, especially people of faith should show mercy to the most weak, powerless and vulnerable among us—animals. We believe that Christians should reject all cruelty and violence and go vegetarian," he said.

According to Rivas-Rivas, "The meat industry today treats God's creatures like dirt, rather than God's beloved animals. The meat industries never allow these animals to do anything that is natural to them—they are never able to feel the grass beneath their feet, the sun on their faces, or fresh air. They endure mutilation—chicks have their beaks burned off, cows and pigs are castrated without anesthesia, cows are dehorned and branded, and the list goes on—all without any painkillers. To subject animals to such cruelty, simply for a palate preference, makes a mockery of God by showing such complete contempt for his creatures."

Jeremy Reynalds

He was honored with the prestigious Jefferson Award in 1994. Reynalds emigrated from England to the United States in 1978 and became a naturalized American citizen in 1999. He has a master's degree in communication from the University of New Mexico and is a candidate for the Ph.D. in intercultural education at Biola University, located in La Mirada, California, just outside Los Angeles.

He is also the author of two books and a contributor to a third, which deals with the media's images of the homeless. He may be reached by e-mail at reynalds@joyjunction.org.