Last night’s season premier of “Penn and Teller: Bullsh*t!” exposed some of the more disturbing, frightening, and lesser-known features of the animal rights movement. The episode, which prominently features the Center for Consumer Freedom, reveals the dark side of target=_blank>People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and even moved the silent half of the Penn and Teller comic duo to words. “PETA is a scary organization,” says the usually speechless Teller. “People loosely connected with PETA burn down buildings. People whose bank accounts PETA puts money in burn down buildings … I like animals, too. But not to the extent that I want to block a cure for cancer or AIDS by burning down research laboratories.”
Jerry Vlasak, spokesman for PETA’s medical front group (the misnamed Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine), had this to say on last night’s show: “If someone is killing, on a regular basis, thousands of animals, and if that person can only be stopped in one way by the use of violence, then it is certainly a morally justifiable solution.”
Penn, who lost his father to diabetes, isn’t amused by PETA’s rigid stance against using animals to conduct life-saving medical research: “[PETA president Ingrid Newkirk] says she is against testing that would have helped my father. They have a slightly anti-human stance. The Nazis were slightly anti-human … they liked some humans.”
For those that missed Penn and Teller’s hilarious yet devastating expose of the animal rights movement, the episode will be re-aired at 10:30 pm next Thursday (April 8) on the Showtime cable network.
