Standing up Against PETA

I want to share a post from a woman named Michelle who I know from a message board I frequent. She writes about her experience with PETA and how she stood up for what she believes in despite being one of the only people in the room who felt that way. It made me want to stand up and cheer. I was given permission by Michelle to post:

Last night I engaged in a little legal, non-violent, social dissent. Dan Matthews the exec. VP of PeTA (People for the ethical Treatment of Animals (the lowercase e is thier's not mine)) gave a lecture at my school. Of course, I had to go. Many of you probably do not know it, but I am staunchly anti-PeTA. I won't get into a discussion of my views here, but if you have any questions on how a devoted animal lover like myself could hate an organization that is "for the animals," please check out the website: www.petakillsanimals.com. You will be shocked and appalled. If you can only read one page, I would read this one: http://www.petakillsanimals.com/article_detail.cfm?article=134 There are also some great informative videos on PeTA on Youtube, if you search for videos posted by PSVIDZ08. I've never been much of a protestor. I have spoken out about things I don't agree with at meetings etc. I have written to and spoken to congress people about issues. I've written articles. I've educated a lot of people about subjects I'm passionate about. However, I have never been the sign holding, flyer dispensing, one angry woman against the world type. But I decided to make an exception last night. I decided to post my experience, as a few people have asked me about it. I started off the evening by putting up my flyers in each stall in the lady's room outside the lecture hall. Then I seated myself in the small terraced lecture hall so that there were people behind me on both sides. I then took out my laptop and nonchallantly started playing the PSVIDZ08 YouTube videos. Mostly I played the ones about PeTA killing animals, the Vick dogs and medical research. I occassionally moved my laptop to garner a new audience. People saw them. One guy behind me was watching the Vick video which starts by showing pictures of happy pits with their names under them. He pointed out a few of the dogs' names to his friends. Once the info about PeTA calling for thier deaths came on the screen there was no more talking. While I was playing the video of the animals PeTA killed and threw in the dumpster, a woman behind me but across the aisle stage whispered to her friend (or husband) "LOOK AT THAT! Look what she has on her laptop." I smiled nicely and positioned the laptop so she could see better. She was there to thank PeTA for thier help with getting pets into condos... which is funny since PeTA's goal is "total animal liberation" which includes no pets. I sat politely through the talk. Mr. Matthews is a very engaging speaker: handsome, approachable and humorous. They chose their voice well. He knows his stuff and is good at deflecting negativity. But... I'm not so bad myself (despite the fact that I was horribly nervous and my hands were shaking the entire time). I have to give it to him that he called on me twice and then shook my hand after. But then again, PeTA is all about looks. There was one dissenting voice besides mine. A guy brought up the Vick dogs, which was nice because I couldn't get to them. The rest of the people there were PeTA supporters. I brought up two issues: 1. The 97% kill rate of last year. He countered with pet overpopulation and said that it was an emotional issue. I countered with puppies and kittens were killed in a van. I brought pictures. After this, people boo'ed me and one girl shouted "why are you even here? Why don't you just leave?" I've never been boo'ed in my life, so this was a surprising if not novel experience for me. They then gave Mr Matthews a round of applause (brought about by a rabbi in the audience, which I find hilarious due to PeTA's stance on Kosher slaughter that states that Jews have misinterpreted the Torah and PeTA's depiction of the killing of chickens as a holocaust complete with pictures of dead holocaust victims. 2. I brought up their tax exampt status in light of them supporting FBI recognized terrorists and convicted criminals with donations and legal defense. He countered with they don't endorse violent behavior and don't support the groups. I countered with they gave them donations, so doesn't that mean they support them. He replied that that is up to interpretation stating: "You decide." Afterwards, I left flyers on the desk where I was seated. I walked down past Mr. Matthews and he turned to me and said thank you for your interesting questions. Then he shook my hand. I said, thank you sir. You are a very engaging speaker. However, I do not agree with your beliefs. He then said, we probably are not that different, you and I. I said, well that may be true about some issues but not about others. I do not believe in animal abuse. I am active with rescue. I work with therapy dogs. I work with the disabled community who use service dogs, which PeTA is against. I am studying to be a doctor, so I believe in animal research, as 80-90% of what we know with medicine is based on animal research. He said I should read the study out last year from the NIS about that. I told him that I had indeed read the study and it had some good points, but also several innaccuracies. I then said, sir, you said at the beginning of the lecture that you use no animal products of any kind. He smiled and said, oh yes, that's VERY important to me. I said, Sir, do you ever get vaccinations? He said yes and started to look nervous. Someone came up to him and started to draw him away. I spoke a little lounder and said sir, vaccinations are make in eggs. Think about that the next time you have your tetanus shot. Then I left. On my way out, I left a bunch of flyers by the sign for the lecture. I've never been the ONLY dissenting person in a room. Even when I have gone up against other issues (like mandatory s/n and some school stuff), I have never been the ONLY one. I found the experience to be very lonely and very scary. I was actually pretty surprised by my reaction, as I am usually a bit of a tough cookie about stuff and tend to speak well in public. I guess it was in part due to the slick image they have. If you didn't know any of the other stuff, you would think from his presentation that PeTA is this wonderful, SMALL, caring organization. And that he is this lovely handsome man, who was picked on as a kid and came from a poor background and just wants to help the animals. The audience didn't help, as they all believed the hype. I, on the otherhand, wanted to SCREAM! I knew that by my questions (I tried to be nice... really I did ...but how can you be nice about thier kill rate? ) I was being protrayed as the bad person who hates animals... because I disagree with PeTA. That really bothered me. So all in all, it was very nerve wracking... but I did it. In my nervousness some things didn't come across how I would have wished them to... but at least I did it. Hopefully, at least one person will read a flyer or have seen a video or listened to my questions and look for more information. Hopefully.