People for the Ethical Treatment
of Animals suffered one of its worst public relations disasters after
running up against another popular non-profit – Mothers Against Drunk
Driving. PETA decided to run ads aimed at college students claiming that
beer is healthier than milk. A press release announcing the campaign even
noted “PETA is giving away bottle openers that say, “Drinking Responsibly
Means Not Drinking Milk – Save a Cow’s Life.”
This quickly brought the wrath
of MADD and other anti-drunk driving activists. According to MADD, the
advertisements would likely encourage underage drinking. “We’re very concerned
and appalled with it for the simple fact that underage drinking is the
number one drug problem among American youths,” said Teresa Hardt, spokeswoman
for MADD. Bruce Friederich and others tried to do some damage control.
“College students are savvy,” Friederich said. “Nobody’s going to put
beer on their Cheerios or get drunk and drive as a result of our campaign.”
For once I found myself on
Friedierich’s side of the aisle, but it was hard to find too much sympathy
for his position. After all, MADD was successful by turning PETA’s brand
of sanctimonious rhetoric back on that group. Were PETA’s ads really likely
to increase drinking by college students? That is such a nonsensical claim
I can’t believe MADD actually made it with a straight face (is MADD going
to rewrite history and ignore the fact that the precursor to beer first
came into widespread use precisely as an efficient store of calories?)
But MADD’s anti-alcohol hysteria is no more bizarre than Friedrich trying
to convince us that Jesus was a vegetarian or Ingrid Newkirk likening
the killing of chickens for food to the Holocaust.
Moreover there is a more serious
problem – why beer? The upshot of this controversy seems to be that serious
media attention and moral sanction from other public groups will occur
only when PETA makes the mistake of crossing some oddly placed line and
comes into conflict with another politically correct cause. Say beer is
better than milk and Newkirk and Friedrich incur the wrath of numerous
newspapers and television shows. Say that researchers sent razor blades
and death threats get what they deserve, and the silence is deafening.
The fact that PETA was handing
out beer bottle-shaped bottle openers that said “Drink responsibly. Don’t
drink milk.” was featured in a story on the controversy placed prominently
in my local paper. The March 13 torching of Kickapoo Fur Foods in Wisconsin
(just across the lake from here) by the Animal Liberation Front didn’t
rate even a single sentence.
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