Written by Jeff Mackey
Update: Well, that was fast! Shortly after Mary Matalin sent a personal appeal on PETA's behalf urging lawmakers to shelve bills intended to prevent undercover investigations of factory farms, legislators in Arkansas have scrapped their proposed "ag-gag" measures.
Now, let's keep the momentum going—if you live in California, Indiana, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, or Vermont, please tell your state legislators to drop "ag-gag" bills and protect animals, consumers, and free speech.
The following was originally posted on March 28, 2013:
Republican strategist Mary Matalin and her husband, Democratic consultant James Carville, differ on most political issues—but when it comes to legislative attempts to block undercover investigators from PETA and other organizations from revealing how animals suffer on factory farms, the couple stands united in opposition to "ag-gag" bills.
To that end, Matalin filmed a PETA appeal and sent it to Republican legislators—the primary sponsors of these measures—in Arkansas, California, Indiana, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Vermont, highlighting the importance of PETA's undercover work in prosecuting abusers and stopping institutionalized cruelty. After she introduces a video clip about a case that revealed routine beatings and even the sexual abuse of pigs on a Midwestern factory farm and which led to criminal convictions, Matalin states, "A meat-trade magazine called the case a 'wake-up call' for the industry. Unfortunately, factory farms keep hitting the snooze button, and instead of fixing the problems, they're trying to blame the messenger."
What You Can Do
Thanks to the support of concerned citizens, "ag-gag" bills have already been killed in several states, but we can't rest until all lawmakers stop trying to shield lawbreakers. Please join PETA, Mary Matalin, James Carville, Bob Barker, Cloris Leachman, Katherine Heigl, and many other figures from both sides of the aisle in urging legislators to protect consumers' right to know the truth about factory farms. If you live in Arkansas, California, Indiana, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, or Vermont, please take action.
Written by Michelle Kretzer
Katherine Heigl loves Utah so much that she chose the state as the site of her 2007 wedding and later purchased a home there. But when Utah lawmakers proposed an "ag gag" bill that would make it a crime to shoot video on factory farms, Heigl wanted to let lawmakers know that kind citizens like her would not support it.
She penned a letter on PETA's behalf to Utah's state senators urging them to squelch House Bill (H.B.) 187 and allow people to continue to obtain video evidence of animal abuse so that authorities can prosecute the offenders.
As animals cannot defend themselves, the public must maintain its right to document illegal cruel practices in order to alert law enforcement to [their] existence. In 2008, my friends at PETA went undercover at a major pig farm in Iowa that supplies Hormel and found that workers were beating pigs with metal rods and jabbing clothespins into their eyes; one employee was even caught sexually abusing a pig with a cane. Because of this investigation, six workers were charged with a total of 22 counts of livestock neglect and abuse, and all of them admitted guilt. PETA worked hand in hand with local law enforcement to achieve these convictions, for which the undercover footage made the sheriff's job much easier. Please don't impede law enforcement by passing this terrible bill.
Cloris Leachman has already asked Utah lawmakers to dump the bill, which is on very shaky constitutional ground. Last year, when similar "ag gag" bills cropped up in Florida, Iowa, Minnesota, and New York, animal advocates defeated them, thanks in part to the work of kind folks like Cloris and Mary Matalin.
Help us defeat H.B. 187 in Utah too.
Quite a few longtime PETA friends and faves were among the celebs who told the Associated Press about their animal-oriented New Year's resolutions, including Bob Barker ("To continue urging folks to have their pets spayed and neutered—including rabbits."), Lea Michele ("I wish that [my cat] Sheila would stop going into my bathroom, taking out all my cotton balls out of the jars and spreading them all over."), and Katherine Heigl (whose dogs want her "to feed them consistently on time in the morning"), not to mention superhot Josh Duhamel and music legend Roberta Flack, whom we love all the more after hearing about their rescued animal friends.
Other pro-adoption superstars? How about George Clooney, who recently talked to Esquire about adopting his shelter mutt, Einstein? Or Charlize Theron, who wants more people to, well, be like George?
If anyone you know needs convincing that tofu scramble is the real breakfast of champions, you can remind him or her that vegan WWE superstar Daniel Bryan has been awarded the world heavyweight title. Then break a chair across his or her back just to get the point across. (PETA's lawyers would like us to note that this is a joke and that violence is never the answer.)
Not to be outdone, the UFC took to Twitter to urge fans to vote for Jake Shields for peta2's Most Animal-Friendly Athlete Libby Award.
A number of other stars offered up pro-animal tweets as well:
And the always amazing Oscar-winner and Raising Hope star Cloris Leachman raised some hope for animals abused in circuses by writing to the mayor of Orlando and asking him to protect the elephants scheduled to perform in the city with Ringling Bros.
The word on Twitter is that celebs are rejoicing over Ringling's being slapped with the largest penalty in circus history for violations of the Animal Welfare Act. Other celebs are buzzing about going postal.
Chuck star Yvonne Strahovski gave dogs in animal shelters something to rejoice over, discussing her "Always Adopt, Never Buy" campaign with PETA in the winter issue of Modern Dog magazine and urging readers to hop on the adoption train. As if that weren't enough, she then asked them to think about where fur comes from.
Morrissey and his bandmates left little doubt over what they think of fur when the band donned PETA shirts with a, ahem, choice message at a show in L.A.
Wearing fur is such a faux pas that designers are hard-pressed to find celebs willing to look like a permutation of Bigfoot. Reigning Sexiest Vegetarian Kristen Wiig says she will "never wear fur," and cruelty-free fashion designer Stella McCartney snagged the Red Carpet Award at the British Fashion Awards for her fur- and leather-free designs.
This week, animals lost a great advocate when comedian Patrice O'Neal passed away. "I am … [an] extreme animal lover," he once said. "I get sick when I see animals suffering." Farewell, friend.
Written by PETA
If we get a say in who's the most eligible of the Most Eligible Dallas cast, we choose Tara Harper. Besides being a vegetarian, she started an animal rescue organization and has rescued dogs of her own.
Flip the dial to ABC Family to watch Jennie Garth as an adoptive mom on her new show, Village People. She won't need to do anything to get into her heart-of-gold character—the compassionate actor already stands up for animals abused by the circus or killed for their fur. "Animals deserve the same love and respect that babies do, humans do," she says.
It's twins for Katherine Heigl and Josh Kelley! The couple just adopted two German shepherd–mix puppies from a southern California rescue group.
Jimmy Fallon went to bat for the fish who are suffocated and thrown into toilet bowls in a cruel game played by residents of Terra Ceia, Florida, called the "mullet toss." Fallon made fun of the event on his show, calling it "the first step in the redneck mating call."
Pamela Anderson is dead serious about getting horse-drawn carriages off New York City's streets. After a horse named Charlie collapsed and died, followed by the collapse of two more horses within two weeks, she posted to her Facebook page, "Horses do not belong in a congested, urban setting where they are constantly breathing exhaust and sharing the streets with cars, buses and taxis."
Many other celebrities voiced their disgust of horse-drawn carriages and other issues on Twitter:
Written by Michelle Sherrow
AtomicPope/cc by2.0
The stars are out and shining for animal causes. Here are some of the inspiring things they're doing:
Well, Jessica's thinking about opening her heart and home to a new pooch and word on the street is that she "wants a rescue dog."
We're thrilled to hear that she's thinking about rescuing a dog instead of buying one from a breeder. Today, we wrote to the star to urge her adopt her new friend from an animal shelter, pointing out that millions of dogs are euthanized at shelters every year simply because there aren’t enough homes for all of them. Even if she has her heart set on a particular breed, there are many purebreds at open-admission animal shelters and certainly many who are in the care of breed-specific rescue groups.
We hope, hope, hope that Jessica Simpson will join the long list of caring celebrities, including Charlize Theron, Katherine Heigl, Kyra Sedgwick, Audrina Patridge, and Alicia Silverstone, who have saved a life (or two or three) by adopting homeless animals.
Written by Karin Bennett
OK, if you're like me, you cancel all your plans, shut off your cell phone, lock your door, and glue yourself to your couch every Thursday at 9 p.m. for none other than the greatest hour of television all week: Grey's Anatomy.
Well, last night was probably my favorite television night of all time, because the best show ever also brought in an important message about animal rights. (TV + AR = my life, so you can see why I was thrilled.)
If you missed it, let me catch you up. Dr. Hunt, the new head of trauma surgery, wanted to train the residents and interns on how to deal with trauma patients, and he said that dealing with live tissue was the best way to learn. So he tied down six sedated pigs and stabbed them with knives, and then he asked the doctors to perform surgery to keep the pigs alive. (Though I'm quite sure that in real life the pigs were fake, as the show had several notices that no animals were harmed in filming.)
Enter Dr. Izzy Stevens, played by Katherine Heigl. Izzy refused to do the assignment and explained how completely unnecessary it is to test on live animals when we have such advanced alternatives that don't require us to do that. She said that animals are sensitive, emotional creatures that feel pain and don't deserve to be tortured. We are so right there with you, Izzy!
When Dr. Hunt continued to berate Izzy about this issue, she stood up for herself and for animals everywhere and never backed down. She even explained that testing on animals is pointless and can sometimes even work against medical progress. Even though a test might be successful when the subjects are animals, people and animals are different species and therefore will show completely different results.
Even no-nonsense, steely Dr. Yang took a liking to the pigs and called them by name. When the surgeries finished, Hunt ordered Yang to euthanize the pigs and she refused.
What an excellent episode! I was so thrilled to step away from Meredith's whiny, self-obsessed life for a while to focus on the other characters—and such a positive message for animals.
Now, if only Ross University had seen this episode ….
Written by Christine Doré
The Knocked Up star, who was all over the celeb blogs a couple of weeks ago in our new “Have a PETA Day” T-shirt, was spotted today rocking the “Crow and Roach” tee made for PETA by Spiders & Caviar. Thank you, Katherine—you look stunning. TMZ has the story here.
If you have a general question for PETA and would like a response, please e-mail Info@peta.org. If you need to report cruelty to an animal, please click here. If you are reporting an animal in imminent danger and know where to find the animal and if the abuse is taking place right now, please call your local police department. If the police are unresponsive, please call PETA immediately at 757-622-7382 and press 2.
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