ANDREW PORTER, a
"The organization constantly attacks everyone from restaurants to consumers for harming animals. Come to find out, PETA's doing the same thing."
Two North Carolina workers for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals have been charged with animal cruelty for the manner in which they euthanized and disposed of the bodies of dogs and cats.
PETA says the animals were sick or unadoptable. The CCF believes at least some of the pets were adoptable, Porter says.
"You can quibble about the means," he says, but he argues that PETA is doing the same kind of thing for which it condemns others.
"The group was caught doing something they know is not right, or at least looks hypocritical," Porter says.
The Center for Consumer Freedom is run by Washington Richard B. "Rick" Berman, a former labor lawyer and restaurant industry executive who is a lobbyist for the food, alcoholic beverage and tobacco industries.
In the late '80s, Berman fought the Americans with Disabilities Act, saying it threatened to cripple the hospitality industry.
The CCF has repeatedly attacked PETA in the past in the name of "consumer freedom."
"PETA kills animals--and its leaders dare lecture the rest of us," the Berman-connected PETAkills animals.com Web site says.
PETA isn't shy about responding on its own Web site, consumer deception.com, saying, "Berman has been called 'a tobacco company whore,' but he's branched out since then."
PETA spokesperson Colleen O'Brien says the CCF and its Web sites are funded by big food conglomerates such as Phillip Morris.
The CCF's Porter doesn't dispute that, but insists the funding question is "a straw man."
Of the CCF, PETA's O'Brien said: "These are the same people who have campaigned against Mothers Against Drunk Driving. They're representing the very companies that PETA's asking to make changes."
According to The Associated Press, two North Carolina counties have stopped turning over shelter animals to PETA, expressing surprise that the group euthanized cats and dogs.
PETA says it tried to have some of the animals adopted, but the condition of some pets and a shortage of homes made it impossible.
The counties learned of the euthansia after two PETA workers were arrested and charged with dumping dead animals in a shopping center's garbage bins.
One of them, Northampton County, says it will stop working with PETA until the criminal cases against it are resolved.
The wire service reports that since 2001, PETA has taken animals from shelters in Bertie, Hertford and Northampton counties and the town of Windsor.
State documents in Virginia showed that PETA euthanized about 6,100 domestic animals from 2001 to 2003, according to the AP.
Daphna Nachminovitch, director of PETA's domestic-animal and wildlife department, said in a press conference:
"Did we euthanize some animals who could have been adopted? Maybe. The point is that good homes are few and far between. Our aim here was to stop them from dying an agonizing death."
PETA said it offered to take stray animals and euthanize them by fast-acting injection because it considers that more humane than gassing or shooting them.
According to the AP, the two workers arrested last week, Adria Joy Hinkle, 27, of Norfolk and Andrew Benjamin Cook, 24, of Virginia Beach must appear in court July 19 to face charges of animal cruelty, disposal of dead animals and trespassing.
--Michael Zitz