OPINION/COMMENTARY

Consumer Group: Get PETA Out Of Schools

El Paso, TX – This morning, Terrace Hill Middle School joined the long list of schools targeted by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). With its school campaigns, PETA targets children as young as six years old for indoctrination with violent and graphic propaganda. The $25 million animal rights group targets kids at every age level, sidestepping parents and school authorities to lure young and impressionable children into radical activism. PETA targets kids using graphic comic books, age-specific websites, grotesque toys, schoolyard demonstrations, and e-mail alerts sent directly to small children. All of these efforts are exposed in a report by the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), titled “Your Kids, PETA’s Pawns.” Psychologists and school officials have denounced PETA’s propaganda tactics. “Some of the graphics and some of the messages are very, very disturbing – especially to younger kids,” says Dr. Jeffrey Dolgan, chief of psychology at Children’s Hospital in Denver. “Children become the unwitting victims of some campaigns, which are, in fact, harmful because they prey on children’s fears, and they prey on children’s vulnerabilities, and they prey on children’s anxieties.” PETA’s 2003 annual report boasts of reaching more than 2.3 million children and teachers using a variety of reckless tactics....

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