People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA) has this to say ...

"My family and friends don't order fish with me. They know that every time they stab its flesh, I want to scream. Fish are dragged along the ocean bed. They suffer excruciating decompression, their swim-bladders rupture, their eyes pop out, the esophagus and stomach get pushed through their mouths. Then they're tossed on board while still alive and their bellies and throats are cut open." ... She saves her real ire for the fish farmers who "are more dangerous than drug pushers."
Quoted in "The vegan vs. the 'lip-rippers'", Ottawa Citizen (from the Daily Telegraph, London), August 4, 2001.

''The Boy Scouts are supposed to be compassionate role models, not bloodthirsty fish killers. ... In an era of school shootings and hate crimes, it is folly to encourage young boys to harm innocent animals. ... Fish have feelings."
Quoted in "PeTA Attacks 'Bloodthirsty' Boy Scouts, News & Record (Greensboro, NC), June 20, 2001.

Friedrich, Bruce
Vice president for policy and government affairs
1996 -

"I have no doubt that society will one day look back of [sic] Mr. Bass and his ilk with the same revulsion we presently reserve for NAZI doctors and slave traders."
(In a letter to Sierra Magazine, published by the Sierra Club, responding to a July 2001 article, "Why I hunt", by Montanan hunter Rick Bass.)

"If we really believe that these animals do have the same right to be free from pain and suffering at our hands, then of course we're going to be, as a movement, blowing stuff up and smashing windows. For the record, I don't do this stuff, but I do advocate it. I think it's a great way to bring about animal liberation, and considering the level of the atrocity and the level of the suffering, I think it would be a great thing if, you know, all of the fast-food outlets, and these slaughterhouses, and these laboratories, and the banks that fund them exploded tomorrow. I think it's perfectly appropriate ... [applause] I think it's perfectly appropriate for people to take bricks and toss them through the windows, and, you know, everything else along the line. Hallelujah to the people who are willing to do it."
(In an address to the Animal Rights 2001 national convention in McClean, Virginia, July 2001.)

"Mr. McVeigh's decision to go vegetarian groups him with some of the world's greatest visionaries, including Albert Schweitzer, Mohandas Gandhi, Leo Tolstoy and Albert Einstein, all of whom advocated vegetarianism as an extension of humanitarianism."
(On hearing that the last meal of Oklahoma City Bomber Timothy McVeigh before his execution consisted of two pints of mint chip ice cream; quoted in The Financial Times [London; US edition], June 13, 2001.)

""It is the biggest fun bringing a multi-national company to its knees."
(Quoted in "Still proud to be brassy," Manchester Online (UK), Oct. 6, 2003.

"We just want to be able to present our jiggly women."
Complaining about CBS's refusal to run a PeTA advertisement during the Super Bowl featuring two scantily clad females failing to arouse a meat-eating man. "CBS cries foul on PeTA, MoveOn Super Bowl ads", Reuters, Jan. 15, 2004.

"We do things in a very different way. But I understand their frustration. The real crime is that millions of animals are being tortured and killed."
Lange refusing to condemn an Apr. 12, 1999 break-in claimed by ALF at the University of Minnesota in which animals were released, labs were vandalized, and notes and videos were stolen, with damages estimated at up to $4 million. Important research was set back on Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, cerebral palsy and cancer. New Scientist, Apr. 17, 1999.

Maher, Bill
Celebrity spokesman

"To those people who say, 'My father is alive because of animal experimentation,' I say 'Yeah, well, good for you. This dog died so your father could live.' Sorry, but I am just not behind that kind of trade-off."
Politically Incorrect, broadcast on ABC, Oct. 22, 1997.

"We are ethically opposed to any use of animals."
(Quoted in "Animal rights protesters orchestrate bloody display," Daily Princetonian, May 9, 2007.)

"I'm a naturally obnoxious person. There is so much wrong with the world. What we do to these animals is wrong and anything we can do to f*** things up royally, I'm for. Frankly, I don't think we go far enough."
(In "How to stuff a lettuce bikini," interview in Orange County Weekly [CA], vol. 8, no. 47, July 25-31, 2003.)

"He's been arrested more times than he can count, so many times that he wrote a piece for Details magazine rating the world's prisons ... He's been arrested with Chrissie Hynde, has been arrested nearly naked, has been arrested dressed as a rat, rabbit and, yes, a carrot and chicken. 'Getting arrested is fun,' he says, the way someone mentions they like riding roller coasters."
(In "How to stuff a lettuce bikini," interview in Orange County Weekly [CA], vol. 8, no. 47, July 25-31, 2003.)

"Mathews says it will 'find its way to heartless fashion editors and designers, too, but the point is that it will reach more than just clueless celebrities'."
(On a new PeTA campaign "allowing individuals to more gently confront anyone they know with disregard for animal suffering," quoted in "Less Fur to Fly as PeTA Eases Up on Fashion Week," New York Post, Aug. 23, 2002)

"I should break your other bloody arm."
(To [London] Telegraph fashion editor Hilary Alexander, on seeing her broken arm in a possum sling, April 2002, in "Fur fight won't raise hackels," The Age (Australia), May 8, 2002.)

"... because he got Versace to finally stop using furs."
(On why he admires Andrew Cunanan, murderer of fashion designer Gianni Versace; Genre magazine, December, 1999)

"Everyone knows that PeTA takes the animal's side in every instance." (America's Talking TV network, Aug. 16, 1995)

"We have a lazy, sick society. People bring diseases on themselves. [People should] avoid getting the disease in the first place."
(New York Magazine, Nov. 7, 1994)

"Don't get diseases in the first place, schmo."
(USA Today, July 27, 1994)

"We're at war, and we'll do what we need to win."
(USA Today, Sept. 3, 1991)

"So what if we put a few businesses under?"
(Gazette-Mail, Charleston, W.Va., Jan. 15, 1989)

"[People] need to understand that if they support the torture and misuse of other animals they will be made to pay. The animals are defenseless. They can't fight back. But we can. And, no matter what it takes, we always will."
(Quoted in "The Extremist: The Woman Behind the Most Successful Radical Group in America" by Michael Specter, The New Yorker magazine, Apr. 14, 2003)

Newkirk on having children: "I am not only uninterested in having children. I am opposed to having children. Having a purebred human baby is like having a purebred dog; it is nothing but vanity, human vanity."
(Quoted in "The Extremist: The Woman Behind the Most Successful Radical Group in America" by Michael Specter, The New Yorker magazine, Apr. 14, 2003)

"If anybody wonders about what's this with all these reforms, you can hear us clearly. Our goal is total animal liberation."
(Animal Rights 2002 national convention, US)

"Of course we never throw paint on anybody other than our own people wearing furs that have been donated to us because people have had a change of heart, which is wonderful."
(In interview for "Canada AM" with Jeff Hutcheson, CTV Television, Mar. 20, 2002)

"I openly hope that it comes here. It will bring economic harm only for those who profit from giving people heart attacks and giving animals a concentration camp-like existence. It would be good for animals, good for human health and good for the environment."
(On foot-and-mouth disease occurring in the US; ABC News interview, Apr. 2, 2001, and reported in "Animal rights leader hopes disease comes to US" by Alan Elsner, Reuters, Apr. 2, 2001)

"Today's liberationists know that the ice has been broken. Television and newspaper stories have shown the extent of the suffering, over and over again. People know that there are kind alternatives to every cruel thing, from veggie burgers and 'pleather' to virtual organs. Perhaps that's why the 'new ALF' has lost patience with the foot draggers and spends scant time explaining. Determined to cause economic injury to the exploiters, ALF members burn down their emptied buildings and smash their vehicles to smithereens. Perhaps, after reading this book, you will find that you cannot blame them."
(Author's note by Newkirk in Free the Animals : The Story of the Animal Liberation Front, by Newkirk and Chrissie Hynde, published Oct. 21, 2000)

"No studies, I believe, on mice or rats will save lives. It is not good science to pretend that a mouse is a little man. Their physiology is completely different."
(ABC News, 20/20, Oct. 6, 2000)

"If experimenters feel afraid now, that is nothing compared with the fear, harm, and death they have inflicted on their victims."
(Letter to the Boston Globe concerning the sending of more than 80 letters, each containing a razor blade and a threat of violence, to primate researchers across the US; quoted in editorial "Ethics and Animals"; Nov. 4, 1999)

After ALF's "Justice Department" mailed 87 razor blade-laced threats to researchers testing new drugs on primates: "Perhaps the mere idea of receiving a nasty missive will allow animal researchers to empathize with their victims for the first time in their lousy careers. I find it small wonder that the laboratories aren't all burning to the ground. If I had more guts, I'd light a match."
(Letter to the Atlanta Journal & Constitution, Nov. 1, 1999.)

"I will be the last person to condemn ALF. ... No one has been hurt, they have stopped the hurting of animals."
(New York Daily News, Dec. 12, 1997)

"She [Newkirk] said her group does not fund the ALF but once did. 'In the early '90s, it was a very different group, well-organized, and generated a lot of sympathy. But they dissolved. ... Now they're just angry, and act without planning,' she said."
(New York Daily News, Dec. 12, 1997)

"Would I rather the research lab that tests on animals is reduced to a bunch of cinders? Yes."
(New York Daily News, Dec. 12, 1997)

"I wish we all would get up and go into the labs and take the animals out or burn them down."
(National Animal Rights Convention '97, June 27, 1997)

"The bottom line is that people don't have the right to manipulate or to breed dogs and cats ... If people want toys, they should buy inanimate objects. If they want companionship, they should seek it with their own kind."
("Animals", May/June 1993)

"When I hear of anyone walking into a lab and walking out with animals, my heart sings."
(In "To Market, To Market", LA Times Magazine, Mar. 22, 1992)

"Probably everything we do is a publicity stunt ... we are not here to gather members, to please, to placate, to make friends. We're here to hold the radical line."
(USA Today, Sept. 3, 1991)

"Humans have grown like a cancer. We're the biggest blight on the face of the earth."
(Washingtonian Magazine, February 1990)

"You don't have to own squirrels and starlings to get enjoyment from them. ... One day we would like an end to pet shops and the breeding of animals. [Dogs] would pursue their natural lives in the wild ... they would have full lives, not waiting at home for someone to come home in the evening and pet them and then sit there and watch TV"
("Where Would We Be Without Animals?" Chicago Daily Herald, Mar. 1, 1990)

"Meat eating is primitive, barbaric, and arrogant."
(City Paper, Feb. 1990)

"When we build an attractive home, we raze land on which animals have already built their homes. They have nowhere to go."
(Reason, June, 1990)

"Animal liberationists do not separate out the human animal, so there is no rational basis for saying that a human being has special rights. A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. They're all mammals."
(Vogue, Sept. 1, 1989)

"Even if animal research produced a cure [for AIDS], we'd be against it."
(Vogue, September 1989)

"It [animal research] is immoral even if it is essential."
(Washington Post, May 30, 1989)

"I don't use the word 'pet.' I think it's specieist language. I prefer 'companion animal.' For one thing, we would no longer allow breeding ... as the surplus of cats and dogs declined, eventually companion animals would be phased out, and we would return to a more symbiotic relationship - enjoyment at a distance."
(In "Just Like Us? Toward a Notion of Animal Rights", Harper's Magazine, August 1988)

"In the end, I think it would be lovely if we stopped this whole notion of pets altogether."
(Newsday, Feb. 21, 1988)

"I know it's illegal [trespassing], but I don't think it's wrong."
(Montgomery County Journal, Maryland, Feb. 16, 1988)

"Even painless research is fascism, supremacism, because the act of confinement is traumatizing in itself."
(Washingtonian Magazine, August 1986)

"Pet ownership is an absolutely abysmal situation brought on by human manipulation."
(Washingtonian Magazine, August 1986)

"Six million Jews died in concentration camps, but six billion broiler chickens will die this year in slaughterhouses." (Washington Post, Nov. 13, 1983; for more on PeTA's likening of livestock production to the Holocaust, see Holocaust Imagery and Animal Rights, by the Anti-Defamation League, Feb. 25, 2002.)

"I am not a morose person but I would rather not be here. I don't have any reverence for life, only for the entities themselves. I would rather see a blank space where I am. This will sound like fruitcake stuff again, but at least I wouldn't be harming anything. All I can do -- all you can do -- while you are alive is try to reduce the amount of damage you do by being alive." (Washington Post, Nov. 13, 1983)

"If my father had a heart attack, it would give me no solace at all to know his treatment was first tried on a dog."
(Washington Post, Nov. 13, 1983)

"We feel that animals have the same rights as a retarded human child because they are equal mentally in terms of dependence on others."
(New York Times, Jan. 14, 1989)

"Alex Pacheco, a co-founder of PETA, says arson, property destruction, burglary or theft are [begin quote] 'acceptable crimes when they directly alleviate the pain and suffering of an animal'."
(Associated Press newsfeature, Jan. 3, 1989)

"Damaging the enemy financially is fair game."
(Quoted in "Raiders of the Research Ark" by Elizabeth Carpenter, City Paper, Washington, D.C., dec. 18, 1987.)

Yourofsky, Gary

Yourofsky joined PeTA in May 2002 after making his mark with Animals Deserve Adequate Protection Today and Tomorrow (ADAPTT). Check out Gary's own page here.

How can you justify the millions of dollars' worth of property damage by the Animal Liberation Front (ALF)?

"Throughout history, some people have felt the need to break the law to fight injustice. The Underground Railroad and the French Resistance are both examples of people breaking the law in order to answer to a higher morality.'The ALF,' which is simply the name adopted by people acting illegally in behalf of animal rights, breaks inanimate objects such as stereotaxic devices and decapitators in order to save lives. It burns empty buildings in which animals are tortured and killed. ALF 'raids' have given us proof of horrific cruelty that would not have been discovered or believed otherwise. They have resulted in officials' filing of criminal charges against laboratories, citing of experimenters for violations of the Animal Welfare Act, and, in some cases, shutting down of abusive labs for good. Often ALF raids have been followed by widespread scientific condemnation of the practices occurring in the targeted labs."
From PeTA's website section on frequently asked questions, as of 2003, at http://peta.org/fp/faq.html.

"We assume if someone is wearing a fur coat in the year 2000, they are either arrogant or ignorant."
Fur campaign coordinator RaeLeann Smith in "The Fur Fury; Is PeTA Driven by Animal Rights or Resentment of the Rich?", Los Angeles Times, Feb. 18, 2000.

"We don't go into the fur shops and cause a scene or throw paint at people. I don't believe these women look fashionable, but we are not out to ruin something that is their property.''
Spokeswoman Christine Mott quoted in "Fur or faux : Despite controversy, popularity on rise," Times-Union (New York), Jan. 29, 2000. Just days after making this statement, PeTA members crashed three New York fashion shows to throw tofu pie and red paint. See Unanimous Verdict : Fur Is Back!

"Homelessness drives me crazy! I take responsibility for everything that happens to me. Everyone can pull themselves up. I have more sympathy for animals because they don't deserve anything that happens to them. They're innocent."
PeTA member, as quoted in "What Becomes a Zealot Most?," GQ Magazine, November 1993.

"We cannot condemn the Animal Liberation Front ... they act courageously, risking their freedom and their careers to stop the terror inflicted every day on animals in labs. [ALF's activities] comprise an important part of today's animal protection movement."
PeTA statement issued following vandalism at Northwest Farm Foods Co-op, a mink feed facility in Edmonds, Washington, for which ALF claimed guilt; estimated damage: $500,000; June 19, 1991.

Question to PeTA Outreach Coordinator Susan Rich: "If you were aboard a lifeboat with a baby and a dog, and the boat capsized, which would you rescue?" Rich's answer: "I wouldn't know for sure ... I might choose the human baby or I might choose the dog."
Steve Kane Show, WIOD-AM Radio, Miami, Florida, Feb. 23, 1989.

"Let us allow the dog to disappear from our brick and concrete jungles -- from our firesides, from the leather nooses and chains by which we enslave it."
John Bryant, Fettered Kingdoms: An Examination of A Changing Ethic, Washington, DC: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, 1982, p15.

"In a perfect world, all other than human animals would be free of human interference, and dogs and cats would be part of the ecological scheme."
PeTA statement on Companion Animals.

See also:

Holocaust Imagery and Animal Rights By the Anti-Defamation League, Feb. 25, 2002. (Outside link)

PeTA's Zeal Pushes the Envelope Too Far for Some By Virginian-Pilot columnist Bill Sizemore, reproduced with permission. Dec. 3, 2000.

A PeTA-esque Conversation FCUSA's Teresa Platt debates PeTA spokesmodel. Commentary, Nov. 3, 1999.

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