Now, that’s not a real dog on the grill. The fanatics at PETA are crazy, but not crazy enough to slaughter and roast man’s best friend to emphasize the “unjust differentiation made between domesticated animals and those we eat.”
The “prop” was realistic enough to gross out Australians at a shopping mall in Sydney last Thursday where the animal rights activists were holding a protest.
The demonstration coincided, Fox News reports, with Australia Day, which is celebrated throughout the land down under by slipping another something on the barbie. PETA’s intent was to cause outrage. “‘If you wouldn’t eat a dog, why eat a lamb?’ a sign below the lifelike charred dog read.”
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The group also released a statement that read in part:
Anyone who’s repulsed by the prospect of chowing down on dog meat should question the incongruity of their compassion towards other animals.
This is called speciesism – a form of discrimination based on nothing more than species – and like all forms of discrimination, it cannot be justified. As humans, we instinctively feel compassion and empathy for animals, but we’re taught that it’s OK to enslave and eat some of them, without a second thought as to who they are as individuals.
To care about animals – as most Australians claim to – should be to care about all animals. Many animal-free options (which are also better for your health and the environment) are available for your Australia Day barbecue.
PETA has engaged in some outlandish stunts before to promote veganism. In 2014, the Berkeley, Calif. chapter of the group held a funeral for a frozen chicken, and in 2018 PETA campaigned — successfully — to get Nabisco to alter the package design for its animal crackers so that the creatures no longer appeared in cages. But roasting a pooch in effigy is undoubtedly a new low.
