Peta To Launch Porn Site

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is planning to launch a pornographic
website to promote its animal rights and vegan diet message, a move that critics
say will backfire and ostracize them from mainstream society.

PETA spokeswoman Lindsay Rajt said in a telephone interview from Los Angeles on
Tuesday that the group has applied with ICM Registry to launch the website
peta.xxx.

Rajt says the site will feature "tantalizing" videos and photographs, which will
lead viewers into animal rights messages. She noted that Norfolk-based PETA has
used porn stars and nudity to get its message across in the past, including an
annual speech online in which a PETA representative undresses. That video later
shares a message about slaughterhouses.

She says a pornographic site will allow PETA to reach a broader audience and
that publicity about the site is just as important.

"I think the bottom line is we live a in a 24-hour news cycle where over the
years we've found our racier actions are kind of a fast track way to get people
to stand up and pay attention about the plight of animals," she said.

Rajt says November is the earliest that PETA could receive approval for the
site. Critics say that by resorting to pornography, PETA is alienating itself
from a large swath of the population that might otherwise be sympathetic to its
cause.

"I just don't want to understand why they want to offend people who would
potentially support at least part of their cause. There have got to be other
ways to draw attention to their cause," said Robert Peters, general counsel for
the New York-based anti-pornography group Morality in Media. "Metaphorically
speaking, they're getting in bed with hard core pornographers to prevent cruelty
to animals. That borders on insanity."

Rajt said PETA officials would track the website to determine if people are
viewing the animal rights messages and not just the nudity. Past experience has
shown that they will, she said.

J. Justin Wilson, senior research analyst for the food-industry backed Center
for Consumer Freedom, said moves like this by PETA make them increasingly
irrelevant in mainstream society.

"They don't seem to be changing the debate anymore, I think in large part
because people are writing them off as whack jobs," he said from Washington.
"This is one more example of them being their own worst enemy. If they're trying
to win the hearts and minds of people considering being vegetarians, this is
probably the wrong way to do it." See Chick's WOUNDED CHILDREN.