PETA billboard with Virgin Mary coming down

abc6news ^ | December 4, 2003

[NYer]

(East Providence-AP) -- A billboard sign urging people to go vegetarian that shows the Virgin Mary cradling a chicken carcass is coming down.

The animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PEE-Tah) paid three-thousand dollars to rent the billboard off Interstate 195 for a month. The sign was put up a week ago.

Some religious leaders have complained it's offensive and the sign has been defaced with spray paint.

The company that owns the billboard says the sign will be taken down over the next few days and P-E-T-A will get part if its payment back.

Robert Murray, co-owner of Massachusetts-based Murray Outdoor Communications, doesn't want the company in the middle of debate over the sign.

Murray says he sees no problem with the sign.

P-E-T-A spokesman Bruce Friedrich said the group is disappointed but plans to put it on billboards in other cities around the country.

[HiTech RedNeck]

PeTA thought she 'the blessed Vegan Mary'

Oh good grief

They're trying to equate the Son of God and a chicken.

[battousai]

"They go about this in the wrong way. I don't understand why they don't see it. They take symbols important to people they want to "educate" and blaspheme them to make their point. Just makes me want to kick their arses and eat a lot of meat."

You would be correct if these watermelons actually did care about animals... but they don't! There was an article posted just a while back here on how they would just kill animals brought to their shelters.

They are nothing but commies who hate the wealth of America, and they just want attention through shock tactics to generate more donations from the gulible bleeding/bleating? hearts on the left.

[Conservative til I die]

Aside from the shock value, I don't even get the connection between the Virgin St. Mary and chickens and vegetarianism. You might as well put Grover Cleveland and Babe Ruth in the billboard instead.

[Coleus]

No Peace on Earth

The Christmas season, normally a tranquil time in which Catholics gather to celebrate the birth of Christ, has become the stage for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) to attack the Blessed Mother.

PETA’s onslaught began with a Providence, Rhode Island billboard that depicts a traditional image of the Blessed Virgin holding a dead chicken with a caption reading: “Go vegetarian, it’s an Immaculate Conception.” The group is planning to continue their campaign by putting similar billboards in cities across the nation. (The billboard can be seen on PETA’s website at: PETA )

According to a PETA press release the group decided to launch its campaign in Rhode Island because it is the most Catholic state in the union. “I find PETA’s decision to offend the Blessed Virgin in the nation’s most Catholic state extremely offensive,” said TFP Web Editor John Horvat II. “In light of this American Catholics must react, that is why the TFP is activating our network of activists to protest this blasphemy.”

The TFP email campaign will be directed against PETA as well as Murray Outdoor Communications that rented the billboard space to PETA.

Mr. Horvat chose December 8, feast of the Immaculate Conception, to launch the e-protest. “Since this blasphemy is directed against the Blessed Virgin and specifically against the Immaculate Conception, I can think of no better way to honor Our Lady than to stand up for her on her feast.”

Others are troubled that the proponents of blasphemy are capitalizing on Christmas, traditionally a time of peace. “Peace is defined by St. Thomas Aquinas as the tranquility of order,” said James Miller of TFP Student Action. “Therefore order is a prerequisite for peace. Until order is reestablished on earth, I guess we will see no peace on earth, even during Christmastime.”

Help stand up for peace on earth. There are four ways you can help:

	Click here to send this article to all your friends.
	Click here to send your instant protest email to Murray Outdoor Communications and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).
	Pledge Prayers and sacrifice in reparation for the offense this gives to The Blessed Virgin.

Help the TFP continue its work on this and other issues with your financial support.

 

Catholic League--PETA RIPS OFF CATHOLIC ICONOGRAPHY

PETA billboard in Rhode Island draws criticism from Catholics
Religion News Service

The Roman Catholic bishop of Providence, R.I., said a new animal-rights ad featuring the Virgin Mary holding a dead chicken is ``disturbing'' and asked that it be removed from a downtown billboard.

The ad, sponsored by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), features the phrase ``Go Vegetarian. It's an Immaculate Conception.'' A cross is drawn inside the ``o'' in ``Go.''

``This use of one of the most sacred images of the Christian faith trivializes not only the mother of Jesus but also the very cause PETA strives to advance,'' Bishop Robert Mulvee said in a statement.

Catholics will celebrate the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, in which they believe the mother of Jesus was conceived without sin, on Monday.

``It is my fervent hope that they will abandon the use of this offensive campaign and show as much sensitivity to the faith of millions as they do to the plight of animals,'' Mulvee said.

PETA director Bruce Friedrich, a Catholic, said the ad debuted in Providence because the state has the nation's highest percentage of Catholics. The ad will also appear in a half-dozen other cities before Christmas.

Friedrich, who has also come under fire for past campaigns that linked animal slaughter with the Holocaust, said what is really offensive is the ``horrific abuse'' of animals on commercial farms.

``For those of us who are Roman Catholic, Mary embodies compassion,'' he said. ``In the world, there is no more ungodly, un-Christian, immoral sacrilegious practice than what is done to animals on factory farms and in slaughterhouses.''

The billboard has already been vandalized, with the word ``shame'' spray-painted in the bottom left corner, according to the Providence Journal. Friedrich said the billboard would be repaired and not be removed.

``It's gross, to be quite frank with you,'' Providence Mayor Rolland Grant told the newspaper. ``I find it totally offensive.''

PETA billboard in Rhode Island draws criticism from Catholics

=========================================================

Vegetarianism: An Immaculate Conception

Showing the Madonna cradling a chicken in her arms with the tagline “Go Vegetarian—It’s an Immaculate Conception,” a new PETA billboard—designed to steer viewers to GoVeg.com—is popping up across North America.

The ad calls vegetarianism, the best diet for human health, the environment, and animals, an “immaculate conception.”

Click here to view the billboard.

PETA Website with Ad Campaign

 

PETA can be contacted by postal mail, voice phone, fax, or e-mail.

PETA
501 Front St.
Norfolk, VA 23510
Tel.: 757-622-PETA (7382)
Fax: 757-622-0457
E-Mail PETA at info@peta.org

PETA’s Media Department
757-622-7382, extension 1608
If you are from the media, please e-mail us at MediaInfo@peta.org.
Please include the following in your e-mail message:

• Your first and last name
• Name of outlet (including call letters and station frequency, if applicable)
• Location (city, state)
• Telephone and fax number
• Topic
• Deadline

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[JIM O]

PETA

PEOPLE EATING TASTY ANIMALS

[Coleus]

Genesis
Chapter 9
1 God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them: "Be fertile and multiply and fill the earth.
2 Dread fear of you shall come upon all the animals of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon all the creatures that move about on the ground and all the fishes of the sea; into your power they are delivered.
3  Every creature that is alive shall be yours to eat; I give them all to you as I did the green plants.

I think God knows best on who is in charge of the animals on earth and what we humans are supposed to eat: animals

I love animals, they taste delicious!

[farmfriend]

Rights, farms, environment ping.

Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
I don't get offended if you want to be removed.

[shaggy eel]

,,, I'd find a sign like that distasteful and highly offensive. Just the thought of it is enough to make me go out and slaughter ten neighbourhood cats.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!

[ArrogantBustard]

Mary, the Mother of Our Lord and a chicken is really preposterous. Did the First Century Hebrews even have chickens? She is recorded in Scripture to have had something to do with domesticated fowl, though I suspect PeTA would not have approved ...

[ArrogantBustard]

ten neighbourhood cats.

best when served with fava beans and a nice chianti...

[eastsider]

PETA bring religious connotations to their campaign is simply laughable.

How about religion using animal metaphors?

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. (Mt 23:37)

: )

[William Terrell]

I'd buy it if the story were told from the viewpoint of the hen.

[eastsider]

Metaphorically speaking, it is from the viewpoint of the hen ...

[MPJackal]

"You can barbecue it,
Boil it, broil it,
Bake it, saute it.
They's, uh, chicken kabobs,
Chicken creole,
Chicken gumbo,
Pan fried, deep fried, stir fried.
There's pineapple chicken and lemon chicken,
Coconut chicken, pepper chicken, chicken soup, chicken stew, chicken salad,
Chicken in potatoes, chicken burger, chicken sandwich.
That--that's about it".

How about cashew chicken, sesame chicken, chicken noodle soup, chicken and dumplings. I love chicken

[eastsider]

Don't forget General Tsao's Chicken. Or capon (yumbo)!

[Issaquahking]

The ad on FOX is brought to you courtesy of consumer freedom. org. It's a great place along with activist cash.com. They help identify America's enemies.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Did the First Century Hebrews even have chickens?

A rooster crowed after Peter had denied Jesus three times.

[ArrogantBustard]

Duh. Of course.