Got Beer?
Around 1999 or 2000, there was a discussion on an email list for pro-life
vegetarians and vegans regarding PETA's "Got Beer?" campaign.
Parodying the dairy industry's "Got Milk?" campaign, the People for the
Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) campaign urged college students to drink
beer (which is cruelty-free) in place of milk (which is not cruelty-free).
PETA took a lot of flack for this campaign, especially from groups like
Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD)!
I commented that while I disagreed with PETA's approach, I understood their
point: distinguishing between a harmless recreational activity (drinking a
beer) Vs unnecessarily torturing or killing animals (consuming dairy
products -- although the analogy of circuses, or animal experimentation
makes this point clear).
G.K. Chesterton would have understood PETA's point. Often at odds with his
nemesis, George Bernard Shaw, a vegetarian and a teetolaler, Chesterton, a
Christian, once admitted:
"There is a very strong case for vegetarianism as compared with teetolalism.
Drinking one glass of beer cannot by any philosophy be drunkenness; but
killing one animal can, by this philosophy, be murder."
