Lately I have been noticing that the pie has been the chosen medium for garnering attention to animal rights issues, and while I can understand the need to let something fly once in awhile, there has been some unfortunate fallout from some of these pie-tossing incidents. Three recent incidences illustrate my concerns.

The first incident took place on September 21st of last year, 2009. In that incident, a large adult, dressed in a chicken costume, went onstage at a children’s event for South San Francisco Days, at Orange Memorial Park.  There was a child onstage at the time, and there were numerous children in the audience.  The large adult dressed in the chicken costume then proceeded to throw a pie in the face of an actor dressed up as Ronald McDonald.  In this one instance, we have disrespect for children, for chickens, and for an unknown man who has very little to do with animal exploitation except to be in the employ of an animal exploitation industry.  The point of the pie was to emphasize PETA’s request that McDonalds use only suppliers of chicken that employed Controlled Atmosphere Killing, which the PETA blog states is a more profitable and efficient way of killing chickens. They are not asking McDonalds to quit slaughtering chickens, just to use a more profitable and less troublesome way of slaughtering chickens. Once again, PETA is missing the whole point; it is not just how the animals are killed but it is objectionable that they are killed at all. It also does not say much for PETA that they would sponsor that kind of behavior in front of children. What it did accomplish was to set the bar very low for rational discourse regarding a very serious issue of injustice and make a mockery of the devastation that is caused by the demand for animal flesh.

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Then on January 25th of this year, 2010, a PETA supporter sent a pie to the face of Canada’s Minister of Fisheries and Oceans to protest her continued support of the clubbing of baby seals.  While I am in no way a supporter of the slaughter of infants of any kind, a pie in someone’s face does little to help those baby seals. The seal slaughter touches a particular nerve with the public because of the beautiful eyes of the seals, their completely defenseless state, and the brutal and bloody scenes this activity leaves in its wake. What sending flying pies does is reduce animal rights activists to a problematic category at best.  It causes all animal rights activities to get lumped into a very unfair category.  It does nothing to reduce the destruction of the seals which has been going on for decades. A recent search about the seal slaughter revealed a long history of protest against the annual killing with no cessation of the activity. When the demand for seal skin decreased, a market was created to use the animal bodies for another commercial purpose.  Without a shift in thinking about animal life, these kinds of horrendous practices will continue.

I went to PETA’s blog to see if they could explain their reasons for pie-ing people, and found a column they host called, Ask Carla. Someone had asked the question about why PETA throws pies at people. This was her response, and I quote,

Vaudeville pie throwing ala the Three Stooges can hardly be considered violent in this day and age.  Nobody gets hurt, and better natured recipients laugh it off and crack jokes. Confining animals to tiny cages, beating them, starving them, poisoning them, chopping their beaks, tails and toes off without anesthetics, slitting their throats and ripping their skin off while they are still conscious– now that is violent.

So it is supposed to be funny? The Three Stooges? Really?  The Three Stooges and this kind of terror for animals?  Why would anyone want the recipient to laugh it off? Why would PETA want the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans to laugh it off?  As a former public servant, if someone had thrown a pie in my face rather than choosing to write to me or speak to me over a disagreement about a policy, I would have considered that person unstable and recommended treatment for them. There is such an incongruity between the first part of that response and the last part of that response that laughing it off seems to have nothing to do with chopping off tails, toes and beaks. It is appalling that anyone could put those things in close proximity with levity and pie tossing.

Then this past week, I noticed an alert asking for people to volunteer to throw pies at a radio station for hosting the author of an anti-vegetarian book. The ire of the group was against a woman name Lierre Keith, who has written a book entitled, The Vegetarian Myth.  Ms. Keith was a vegan for twenty years and then reverted to omnivorism.  I learned about the book and its author in a snarky column meant to denounce veganism. I left a response on the article that had been asking for pie throwers that read:

Throwing pies in people’s faces discredits the serious issues at hand. How can you expect to be taken seriously or demand respect for animals if you are so disrespectful yourself. Veganism should be a non-violent stance that means respect for others, even if their attitudes are negative towards the movement. Unfortunately, the fallout splatters on the entire movement and makes us look like buffoons rather than rational people with an important issue. You will get press, and you will harm the movement towards respectful treatment of animals.

There had been a prior pie incidence, wherein Miss Keith had been the recipient. This was an additional attempt to pie the radio station that was hosting her. A fellow Examiner who represents Low Carb Diets, Jimmy Moore, has so far posted three articles about the incident and as you can imagine, most of the articles were very supportive of Ms. Keith and very negative towards vegans. Please listen to an interview Jimmy Moore did with Lierre Keith regarding the pie incidence.

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Thank you to Jimmy Moore for presenting a more rational vegan’s viewpoint and thank you to TJ for interjecting somethng on behalf of vegans who are non-violent.

So the result of the attack on Miss Kieth was to increase support for anti-vegan advocate, increase book sales of an anti-vegan book, and decrease respect for the vegan movement. Not very positive. Let’s keep vegan advocacy positive- reaching out to teach other people about the benefits of veganism for the animals, for the earth, and for the health of all of us.

Article about 9/25/2009 pie toss with photo

You Tube video of McDonald’s pie toss

Ask Carla article defending pie throwing by PETA

Article about pie toss at Gail Shea, who supports baby seal slaughter

Response to request for pie throwers

Jimmy Moore article

NZ Vegan Podcast

Gobble Green

Abolitionist Approach