Kelly Epperson
Crusading as the great defender of animal rights against human cruelty is the flamboyantly vitriolic PETA. The notorious animal rights organization is known for their militant stance against animal "cruelty" by using tactics that include marching nude behind a banner reading, "I'd rather go nude than wear fur." The good news, though, is that when PETA President Ingrid Newkirk calls you an offensive name referring to a female dog, she really means it as a compliment.
But what is really at the heart of this organization? Is it just an altruistic group of people that have taken their campaigns to the extreme? Or is it a group that seeks to destroy the idea of a righteous God who gave man a soul and dominion over the animals? Examining their own words reveals an unsettling truth.
You know you're in trouble when your founder's hero is Pete Singer, and that's exactly what we find on the PETA website. Newkirk praises his book, Animal Liberation, hailing it as a book that "changed my life." This book, if you aren't familiar with it, argues that animals should be equally considered in moral questions because they have the capacity to suffer. In the mind of the animal liberator, there is no significant moral difference between humans and animals. Any being that has the ability to suffer is worthy of rights. The website goes on to state their belief that "animals are not ours to eat [or] wear" despite what God, and nature, tell us.
There are two dangerous assumptions that have been made, however, by Newkirk and her cohorts. The first is that humans have no soul. The God-given soul is what distinguishes man from beast. The eternal part of our being is what separates us from the animals, and obligates us to respect the sanctity of human life. The second assumption is that "liberating" animals is the best and most humane form of treatment. Consider the deer population. There are approximately 20 million white-tailed deer in the United States, and many areas suffer from overpopulation. This overpopulation causes disease and starvation, not to mention the destruction of crops and auto collisions. The animal rights activists would tell us, like IDA (In Defense of Animals), that if we left them alone, the deer would naturally regulate themselves and go back to a sustainable population. What they fail to give us, though, is any idea of how they would regulate themselves, or any evidence that this has actually been done. Isn't that convenient? Newkirk has suggested that sterilization could be a solution. If we follow her own expressed logic, however, that would mean that we should be able to sterilize humans without their consent for the "good" of humanity. And while we might be grateful that she herself has taken this course of action, that is her choice, and no one else's. If animals are deserving of rights, forced sterilization should be condemned.
Truly, "the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God" (I Corinthians 3:19). These people, in their self-proclaimed wisdom, have made a farce of the dominion that God gave man over the beasts of the field and the fish of the sea (Genesis 1:26). When we destroy the human soul, it inevitably leads to a debasement of the human race and of animals. When we realize the intended order of creation, we can be good stewards of it, rather than elevating it above God.
References: Practical Guide to PETA , Hunting and Overpopulation , PETA
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