{"id":158,"date":"2009-08-18T11:21:34","date_gmt":"2009-08-18T11:21:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/yourcharmedlife\/2009\/08\/peta-save-the-whales.html"},"modified":"2009-08-18T11:21:34","modified_gmt":"2009-08-18T11:21:34","slug":"peta-save-the-whales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/2009\/08\/peta-save-the-whales.html","title":{"rendered":"PeTA save the whales"},"content":{"rendered":"

You who read this blog know that I’m an animal rights supporter and a contributer to PeTA. I’ve defended them, wild tactics and all, publicly and even with members of my own family. The current “PeTA save the whales” campaign that includes a billboard implying that obese people are “whales” who can be “saved” by a vegetarian diet (the billboard is shown at the bottom of this post) is, however, appalling for a number of reasons:<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
(1) This shaming (and shameful) approach is cruel.<\/i> PeTA’s very name includes the word “ethical.” They’re People for the Ethical<\/i> Treatment of Animals. Human beings are animals and this is ugly, insulting, unethical, and unkind.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
(2) It won’t work because shaming people always makes things worse.<\/i> I know: I was shamed for nearly 30 years because of eating and weight. You know what I did every time it happened? I ate something!<\/i><\/div>\n

<\/i><\/div>\n
(3) <\/span>It won’t work because a diet — any diet — isn’t enough. I’ve kept off over 60 pounds for over twenty-five years eating vegan food. It’s a fabulous way to eat for health, weight loss, ethical considerations, and a sustainable planet, but people who are obese (and even up-and-down dieters who never make it to obesity) need more than another diet, even a good one. Until the empty hole inside is dealt with by a loving approach that takes the whole person into consideration, any kind of food plan is worthless in the long run. (For dealing with the empty hole, I recommend Overeaters Anonymous<\/a>. There’s more in my books The Love-Powered Diet<\/a>; Fat, Broke & Lonely No More<\/a>; <\/i>and Fit from Within<\/a>.<\/i>)<\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
(4) It makes vegetarians — and that includes me — look heartless, and vicious, and like we really do only care only about 4-footed animals, bipeds be damned<\/i>. Dedicated animal welfare and animal rights activists work diligently to let the rest of the world know that we are caring people — caring all ’round. Someone who works to help the blind is never faulted for not helping the deaf; it’s understood that people are called to different causes, different passions. We who are called to work for animals have to continually defend this choice. When someone puts up a billboard like this, it deletes a great deal of the work we’ve done.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
PeTA: you’ve done so many wonderful things. You’ve made a genuine difference for non-human animals in my lifetime. You have mitigated suffering on this planet and that is a holy thing. But today: shame on you. This time, even for me, you really have gone too far. And that makes me sad, because I know your commitment, tenacity, and effectiveness. Those, combined with a dose of humane treatment for all — <\/i>not the travesty shown below — <\/i>really could change the world.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\"peta_whales.jpg\"<\/span><\/div>\n
Someone who read this post suggested that I include PeTA’s contact info for people to voice their opinions. The main website is www.peta.org<\/a>. The e-mail I have is info@peta.org. <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Victoria Moran, a vegan and author of The Love-Powered Diet, has long been a supporter of Peta. Their current campaign that refers to obese persons as “whales” puts Moran, who struggled with weight for years herself, on the other side.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":177,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-solving-problems"],"yoast_head":"\nPeTA save the whales - Your Charmed Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/2009\/08\/peta-save-the-whales.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"PeTA save the whales - Your Charmed Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Victoria Moran, a vegan and author of The Love-Powered Diet, has long been a supporter of Peta. Their current campaign that refers to obese persons as "whales" puts Moran, who struggled with weight for years herself, on the other side.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/2009\/08\/peta-save-the-whales.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Your Charmed Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-08-18T11:21:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/yourcharmedlife\/files\/import\/peta_whales.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Victoria Moran\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"PeTA save the whales - Your Charmed Life","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/2009\/08\/peta-save-the-whales.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"PeTA save the whales - Your Charmed Life","og_description":"Victoria Moran, a vegan and author of The Love-Powered Diet, has long been a supporter of Peta. Their current campaign that refers to obese persons as \"whales\" puts Moran, who struggled with weight for years herself, on the other side.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/2009\/08\/peta-save-the-whales.html","og_site_name":"Your Charmed Life","article_published_time":"2009-08-18T11:21:34+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/yourcharmedlife\/files\/import\/peta_whales.jpg"}],"author":"Victoria Moran","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/2009\/08\/peta-save-the-whales.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/2009\/08\/peta-save-the-whales.html","name":"PeTA save the whales - Your Charmed Life","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/2009\/08\/peta-save-the-whales.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/2009\/08\/peta-save-the-whales.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/yourcharmedlife\/files\/import\/peta_whales.jpg","datePublished":"2009-08-18T11:21:34+00:00","dateModified":"2009-08-18T11:21:34+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/#\/schema\/person\/ebb794f0d368bdf88a1a63a4e4461b75"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/2009\/08\/peta-save-the-whales.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/2009\/08\/peta-save-the-whales.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/2009\/08\/peta-save-the-whales.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/yourcharmedlife\/files\/import\/peta_whales.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/yourcharmedlife\/files\/import\/peta_whales.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/2009\/08\/peta-save-the-whales.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"PeTA save the whales"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/","name":"Your Charmed Life","description":"Victoria Moran on living with heart and soul in the real world","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/#\/schema\/person\/ebb794f0d368bdf88a1a63a4e4461b75","name":"Victoria Moran","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e82\/e82418f1930873d06f20efd5782c1bb9x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e82\/e82418f1930873d06f20efd5782c1bb9x96.jpg","caption":"Victoria Moran"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/author\/vmoran"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/177"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/yourcharmedlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}