Federal Judge Rules PETA Can Be Sued For Naming Whistle-Blower

By Lynn Herman

A Florida deputy sheriff who lost his job after telling People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals that his former co-worker was allegedly abusing police dogs, can sue PETA for outing him as a whistle-blower, a federal judge ruled.

PETA allegedly made an oral promise to protect the identity of former deputy officer Jason Yerk when he agreed to talk to PETA about the suspected animal abuse, as a corroborating witness, within the Lee County Sheriff’s Office.

However, PETA disclosed his identity to the sheriff’s office during the internal affair investigation and he had to resign, according to the complaint reported by Courthouse News.

Yerk claims that PETA intentionally broke the oral agreement, knowing that he would be subject to reprisals. He sued PETA for breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, misrepresentation, breach of oral contract and negligence, saying that PETA’s disclosure caused him lost wages, benefits and earning capacity.

PETA contested the existence of a confidentiality agreement protecting his identity and claimed that since law enforcement had compelled PETA to identify Yerk, therefore his name could not remain confidential.

Yerk initially denied talking to PETA, but came clean following an internal affairs investigation. Thus, PETA sought to dismiss Yerk’s action claiming that his perjury during the investigation invalidated his claims.

U.S. District Judge John Steele rebuffed PETA’s argument, finding that Yerk’s untruthfulness does not constitute “illegal” conduct under any Florida statute, since his statements had no bearing on the result of the investigation. What’s more, the internal affairs interview was not an “official proceeding.

Steele also rejected PETA’s contention that the confidentiality agreement contradicted Florida public policy and was therefore unenforceable. “In this case, the confidentiality agreement allowed PETA to disclose the substance of the alleged abuse and the identity of the witnesses to it,” according to the Nov. 4 ruling. “The agreement only precluded the disclosure of the identity of PETA’s source. While it seems clear that the confidentiality agreement did not and could not create an absolute privilege, and would eventually give way to lawful procedures which could compel disclosure of the source’s identity, that stage had not arrived in this case. At the time of the disclosure in this case, PETA was not legally required to answer questions from the LCSO [Lee County Sheriff's Office].”

Steele left it up to a jury to decide whether Yerk’s resignation was reasonably foreseeable to PETA and whether PETA had caused his employment-related damages.

The court denied PETA’s motion for reconsideration on Dec. 1.

jobmouse

PETA claims UTA officers stifled activists' free speech during circus

By Dennis Romboy, Deseret News

SALT LAKE CITY — PETA filed a lawsuit against two Utah Transit Authority police officers Wednesday, claiming they stopped activists from handing out anti-circus fliers at a TRAX station.

Animal rights activists Jeremy Beckham and Jessica Johnson were talking to people and distributing literature on the rail platform north of EnergySolutions Arena in September during a Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus performance. They say UTA officers Jordan Hamilton and Connor Macke told them they were violating UTA ordinances and threatened to cite them for trespassing if they didn't leave.

Beckham, a PETA employee, and Johnson, a PETA volunteer, left the platform. Both live in Salt Lake County.

The lawsuit, which does not name UTA, contends the officers violated the activists' free-speech rights, noting a UTA ordinance permits "public speaking" and the "distribution of non-commercial written materials" at transit facilities. It seeks an injunction to ensure the activity is allowed.

"The UTA officers had no legal right to force these activists to stop politely speaking out against Ringling Bros. circus, which routinely beats and whips the animals it forces to perform in its shows," said PETA director Delcianna Winders. "Without an injunction, we have no guarantee that our right to free speech will be protected."

UTA spokesman Gerry Carpenter said he couldn't comment on the lawsuit, adding neither the transit authority nor the officers have received formal notification of the complaint.

Carpenter pointed to sections in the ordinance that are exceptions to rules allowing public speaking and passing out fliers. Those activities, according to the ordinance, must not occur in the transit right-of-way or impede passengers or rail service.

UTA, he said, considers the platform part of the right-of-way.

"Our officers are required to enforce UTA ordinances and Utah law," he said.

The lawsuit contends Beckham and Johnson did not disrupt, impede or interfere with transit services, the movement of passengers or UTA employees, or public safety.

Deseret News

PETA calls on Kentucky not to allow elephant rides

Associated Press

PETA is urging the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources not to repeal a ban on elephant rides at circuses and fairs.

The animal rights group said in a letter to Kentucky officials that elephants are dangerous animals and that putting children on their backs "is like placing them on a ticking time bomb."

Elephant rides were banned in Louisville following a 1994 incident in which a man visiting the Louisville Zoo was picked up and dropped several times by an elephant.

A push to lift Kentucky's restrictions has led to strong opposition from animal advocates.

The Humane Society of the United States also has called on state wildlife officials not to lift the ban.

The Washington Examiner

Katherine Heigl Launches 'I Hate Balls' Campaign for Pets

Submitted by Phyllis M Daugherty on Dec 5, 2011

Move over naked PETA ladies! Males--or at least a certain part of their anatomy—have become the shock factor in an irreverent new humane effort. Katherine Heigl has just launched her “I Hate Balls!” campaign to save the world by eliminating testicles!

"I can't cut the nuts off human men — yet. So I've dedicated my time to the neutering of dogs. Because that's legal!" says Heigl in a satirical PSA intended to bring attention to the need to neuter dogs and cats.

Katherine Heigl, through the Jason Debus Heigl Foundation, has sponsored many spay-and-neuter programs to decrease pet overpopulation. It appears she has lost patience with conventional messages.

She describes testicles as jiggly, crinkly, muppet-like, and disgusting and basically without positive merit but assures us she doesn’t hate men. When Katherine’s husband begs her to give his balls back so he can have a night out with the boys, she hands him a jar definitely appearing to contain what is extracted during a castration.

Katherine Heigl has taken a daring plunge to start an unusual conversation about neutering via a graphic derision of “balls.” And there’s no question, if anyone has a pair, it is Katherine Heigl!

This PSA is enough to make even the most macho, self-assured males cringe, but does it accomplish the goal of making you want to cut the balls off your dog (or cat)?

Opposing Views

Why PETA Is Meat’s Best Friend

Jokes are not the best way to deal with the question of animal suffering

By Josh Ozersky

Eating meat involves killing animals, an act few of us ever witness, let alone participate in. I’m okay with that; I’ve gone on record as saying that I love meat and animals but never want to be present at the moment when one becomes the other. That’s me. But many other Americans are ambivalent, and on the eve of the biggest dead-animal holiday of the year, the highest-profile animal rights organization in the country, PETA, has failed, yet again, to make anybody feel remotely bad about eating animals.

What’s unfortunate for that organization is that in the same week it did one of its idiotic publicity stunts — asking Turkey, Texas, to change its name to Tofurkey, Texas — somebody else did the job PETA should have been doing and documented the abuses taking place at Sparboe Farms, a massive egg farm that sold to McDonald’s. 20/20’s video, which is ghastly, succeeded in getting McDonald’s and fellow Sparboe customer Target to immediately drop it as a supplier. No Sandusky-style “internal investigation,” no temporizing, no excuses; just a swift stroke of the knife. When that happened, untold millions of chickens were spared the cruelties shown so starkly in the video. For farms of that scale, losing McDonald’s is tantamount to Lockheed losing the Pentagon. It’s practically their reason for being. And you can bet other big suppliers don’t want to lose McDonald’s either. So real-world economic pressures changed the way animals live and die in America — just as they did in 2007, when Burger King became the first of the fast-food giants to implement a cruelty-free meat program.

Meanwhile, PETA, which should be in the vanguard of this type of thing, just keeps pulling lame pranks that make people like me feel even better about eating meat. Tofurkey, Texas? Really? Everything about the setup is dumb: the idea that the name of a town is equivalent to killing the thing it’s named for, the choice of a Texan town (the birthplace of Bob Wills!), the choice of a weird, fake, tasteless product as a substitute. It’s just so tone-deaf, just like another recent stunt in which PETA went after Super Mario for dressing up like a raccoon. (According to the press release, “Tanooki may be just a ‘suit’ in Mario games, but by wearing the skin of an animal, Mario is sending the message that it’s OK to wear fur.”)

Sometimes I think that PETA is a front group for the National Cattleman’s Council. Why else would its members go out of their way to seem so crankish and pissy? How is that supposed to help? PETA, as one of the biggest animal-rights groups in the world, should be doing more to combat puppy mills, unnecessary and inhumane cosmetic testing and the like. But instead of waiting until it has something really important to say, the group issues dopey agit-prop press releases and what ends up happening is that PETA and the movement it represents becomes a joke. Literally. I wish I had copyrighted that “People for the Eating of Tasty Animals” T-shirt that I see everywhere.


News-Press.com

PETA's latest Thanksgiving scare tactic

By MIKE JONES Associate Editor
Published: 11/20/2011 2:28 AM
Last Modified: 11/20/2011 2:56 AM

Someone tell the folks over at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals that Halloween is over and they can stop scaring the kids, although it won't do any good.

PETA abides by the old Hollywood axiom of, "I don't care what you say about me as long as you spell my name right." I know that and I'm probably falling right into that trap, but, despite giving PETA publicity, sometimes the things it does simply can't go unnoticed or uncriticized.

PETA has outraged a lot of folks over the years. It is good at it - and it knows it. It hasn't let us down this holiday season. This year PETA is introducing new billboards. A few cities have been targeted, including Tulsa. The billboards are supposed to show up near schools.

The billboard depicts an animal that is a cross between a turkey and a cute black and white dog. It has a dog face and turkey body. The billboard's message: "Kids: If You Wouldn't Eat Your Dog, Why Eat a Turkey?" Seriously, that's what it says.

Baloney

PETA innocently says it hopes to establish a dialogue between kids and parents about becoming a vegetarian rather than eating meat. Baloney. What PETA is trying to do, what it is always trying to do, is frighten kids. It wants to plant a horrible picture in the heads' of prepubescents that will give them nightmares and ruin everybody's Thanksgiving dinner. Does PETA somehow expect such crass behavior to set little ones along the path to the righteousness of veganism?

As of Friday, there had been no reports of PETA's billboards in Tulsa. Maybe PETA had a change of heart. I doubt it. It's more likely it couldn't get the billboard space or is waiting until closer to Thanksgiving.

Let's get something straight. I love animals. I have two rescue dogs in my home. I have always had pets and I've always treated them well. My dogs, these two and previous dogs, are a part of my family. There was a time when cats also resided in my house. All but one of those was a rescue pet. I no longer hunt. I no longer fish. I don't kill spiders (except for black widows) or snakes. I even have trouble doing in the mouse that wanders around my house. (The dogs certainly are no help.) I don't wear fur.

But I have no problems with those who do hunt or fish. I'm not too crazy about people wearing fur and it upsets me when someone kills a snake for no good reason. And I believe that everyone ought get their dogs and cats from the pound or at least someone's unwanted litter.

On the other hand, I grew up around a farm. There were ducks, chickens, dogs, cats, pigs, milk cows, beef cattle, sheep, horses and a few other critters I have forgotten. Back then I hunted and fished. We ate what we killed - squirrels, rabbits, quail, fish and maybe a few other things that my grandpa figured I was better off not knowing about.

One piece of advice I have given my son (maybe the only good advice and likely the only bit he paid attention to) is never give a name to something you might end up eating.

A purpose

Yes, I have seen slaughter houses. I know what goes on there. I've witnessed the process from start to finish. It's not pretty. Admittedly, most of my up-close encounters were with the food we raised and ate. We sent one steer a year off to slaughter, as well as hogs. The chickens we dismissed ourselves on Sundays. I know there are issues with some big corporate farms where cattle, hogs, chickens and turkeys are raised in some pretty sad conditions. I would hope that those conditions can change. I can't bring myself to eat veal.

When you grow up on or around a farm, you learn pretty quickly that everything there has a purpose. Most of those purposes have something to do with eating.

Obviously, I am not against eating meat or poultry or fish or cheese or drinking milk. Neither do I condemn those who don't. I have friends and family members who are or have been vegetarians or vegans. They don't try to convert me nor I them. They certainly don't try to scare the hell out of the kids.

For PETA, however, there is no middle ground, no compromising. Its tactics can be despicable. Taunting customers, again, mostly kids, at burger joints or at fishing derbies. This latest one that puts a turkey on equal footing with a dog does no good toward the cause of vegetarianism. It will do no more than confuse and frighten kids. As far as I'm concerned, it borders on abuse.

The people at PETA ought to be ashamed, but I'm sure they won't be. And they can send me the thank-you note for giving them the publicity for another one of their whacky, tasteless promotions.

Sometimes, however, stupid and mean-spirited simply can't be ignored.

Pass the turkey. Pet the dogs.

Tulsa World

By Chris Davis

TULSA, Okla. —

A new billboard that may go up soon in Tulsa would feature a picture of a crossbred animal meant to educate kids about Thanksgiving turkeys. It's from PETA and they ask, "Kids, if you wouldn't eat your dog, why eat a turkey?"

When we learned PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) may be placing these billboards in the community, we wanted to know what the reasoning was. So, I got on the phone to Paige Snyder, a representative for the group.

"Thanksgiving should be a time for celebration and not a time for animal abuse," she said. "Turkeys may not be as familiar to us as dogs and cats, but they have the same capacity to suffer and that's something kids inately understand."

The plan is to place the billboards near Tulsa schools to spark discussions between kids and parents.

"There are lots of kids out there who just don't want to see a dead bird as a centerpiece at Thanksgiving dinner. Hopefully our billboards will spark discussions with their parents." She says then maybe kids would want to give the turkeys a break.

Snyder told me Tulsa is one of only three cities being targeted with the illustrations.

"We're hoping to get them up in Tulsa, Jacksonville and also Salem, Oregon," she said.

And the alternative Thanksgiving meal-a Tofurky. It's a simulated, largely soy-based meat-like product that PETA officials are certain would delight children who know of the plight of the 250 million turkeys killed in the U.S. each year. Almost 40 million of those are killed for the holiday.

PETA's website says turkeys that are bred for food are often crammed into dirty warehouses and die from disease, smothering or heart attack before being slaughtered. The organization points out that the breeding process makes harvest turkeys overweight and their legs buckle from the excess meat.

PETA says vegan meals are a more humane source for holiday food.

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