PETA antics wearing thin

It's always something, isn't it? If People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals isn't throwing blood on fur coats, it's likening the conditions of the Holocaust in Nazi Germany to the anxiety of livestock before slaughter. Puh-lease.

Now PETA is making a case for vegetarianism relying upon The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Word of Wisdom. LDS Church officials say they do not interpret the passage posted on a PETA billboard along 3900 South 279 West as a call to vegetarianism. (The LDS Church also owns this newspaper.)

While PETA might view this as its latest attempt to shock and incite, it's really another blow to the organization's dwindling credibility. Should the organization ever want to champion a legitimate cause, who would bother to listen?

There are some issues regarding the large-scale production of food and fiber that deserve public scrutiny. Consumers should learn more about where their food comes from and how factory farms treat livestock and poultry. A generation ago, there were many more family farms than today, and most people had some tie to agriculture. Food production was hardly a mystery.

Times have changed, and some people don't think about or know where their food originates, other than the neighborhood grocery store.

People who object to the notion of corporate farming have any number of consumer choices. Consumers' demands for organic products have been met by mainstream grocers. Truly, that's the best way to change the face of the marketplace.

The bottom line is, if people don't want to eat animal products, they don't have to. If they don't want to wear fur, leather or use products that require animal byproducts, they are free to make other choices.

Although PETA protests are always flashy and stir commotion, one wonders, at the end of the day, if people's attitudes or habits are altered because they see a PETA billboard (that in this case misrepresents a certain faith's tenets) or they encounter a PETA representative wearing a "mad cow" costume. It's doubtful. Really, it does a disservice to the legitimate issues that organizations like PETA could raise. But PETA's own actions become self-defeating because the people who could conceivably make a difference regarding these issues quit listening a long time ago.