Reply #47: As to your first point

[superduperfarleft]

"first off, there is a huge difference between meat eating and vegetarian. if everyone stopped eating meat but still did dairy products, there would be much less factory farming, cruelty to animals, and environmental degredation due to the meat industry."

How exactly do you figure? Dairy cows are turned into hamburger when they're no longer producing, and their calves are stuck in veal crates. Laying hens are regularly slaughtered once they no longer can produce eggs (and then there's the stories about male chicks being ground up alive in a wood chipper, or being stuffed into a bag that is then thrown in the garbage so that the chicks suffocate under the weight of each other, because no one needs male chicks in an egg-laying operation). And you don't think dairy cows and egg-laying hens suffer on their own?

And anyway, do you absolutely NEED those dairy products? Will you shrivel up and die without cheese? Seems to me the best way to prevent cruelty to animals is to quit eating them altogether. By being a vegetarian, and not a vegan, you're still supporting the exact same industry just as if you were a run-of-the-mill omnivore.

"and regarding your comment about Ingrid's rent getting paid... PETA is a non-profit organization. If she was in it for the money she'd be doing something else. Her salary is not tied to the profits of the organization in any way. "

So is the Susan G Komen Foundation, or the United Way. Doesn't mean that they aren't getting loaded off of the donations of well-meaning individuals such as yourself. You're much better off putting your money (and preferably your time, if you have it) towards local rescue groups as opposed to the bloated corporate behemoth that is PETA. Or better yet, at the very least just go vegan and stop participating in the animal-exploitation industries which you claim to oppose.