PETA – it’s not just the dog owners they’re lying to

It’s no secret that PETA kills the vast majority of the animals they take in at their Virginia headquarters — they admit to this, though lie about the circumstances, and my own experience as a field worker for PETA’s Community Animal Project gives me firsthand knowledge of their killing.

Since the first time I blogged about Black Boy, the dog who saved me from going too far down the PETA True Believer path, PETA has been working hard to discredit me. They’ve said I was lying, that I am a vindictive ex-employee who invented a “hateful fantasy” in order to enact revenge against them for firing me. Never mind the fact that I have nothing to personally gain by speaking about my experiences, or that I have been the target of a smear campaign and cyber bullying because I’ve been speaking out. Or that they sent a letter full of lies to my husband’s boss to try to get us to shut up (accusing us of “false and malicious” attacks and attempting to “interfere with PETA’s business”), and potentially endangering my husband’s career with their libelous claims.

I spoke out because I needed to make amends for the things that I did while I worked at PETA, because I wanted Black Boy to have a legacy of change and truth, and because I wanted to help the family of Maya, the dog who PETA employees stole and subsequently killed. Maya’s family is suing PETA and I have stated time and again in this blog that I will do whatever I can in order to help them find justice.

One of the ways PETA has attempted to discredit me is by saying the Community Animal Project (CAP) (the department responsible for the killing of Maya) didn’t even exist when I worked there so how could I possibly have knowledge of the work their field staff does? In fact, in court documents filed for PETA in the Maya case, PETA attorneys state, in reference to my blog and what I’ve written about PETA and their killing, “Indeed, at the time the blogger worked at PETA, PETA did not operate an animal shelter and did not have any program that would have performed the services provided at Dreamland II” (the trailer park where Maya’s family has their home, the home from which Maya was stolen before she was killed). This is a screen grab from a memo in support of motion to strike filed by PETA’s lawyers, from which I pulled the above quote, implying that I am lying about the fact that I was a field worker for CAP.

And this is the performance appraisal I received, which lists my position as “Fieldworker” and my department as “Community Animal Project.” I’ll also note, contrary to what PETA has alleged — that I was a poor employee — that I received an overall rating of “excellent” and was, in fact, given a raise. One of the people who signed the appraisal was PETA President, Ingrid Newkirk.

Obviously, my performance appraisal shows that the statement made by PETA’s attorneys, and filed in a court of law, is demonstrably false, and was designed to damage my credibility. In the end, it’s PETA who has the credibility problem.

PETA: Lie Away, Doesn’t Change the Fact that Your Shelter is A Slaughterhouse

I’ve written many times about Maya, the dog who was stolen and killed by PETA employees, about the lawsuit Maya’s family has filed against PETA, and about my desire to do whatever I can to help Maya’s family find justice. Things in the legal realm are well under way, and the most recent thing to happen is that PETA responded to the individual complaints against them. For a spot on run down of PETA’s latest lies, er, response you can read the most recent blog piece by Nathan Winograd, “It’s the Family’s Fault We Stole and Killed Their Dog.”

There’s no point in reiterating what Mr. Winograd has already concisely laid out so I only want to touch on one thing. I was reading through PETA’s answers yesterday and when I got to point 19, the point addressing my blog and my employment with PETA, I was a little shocked. After I wrote my initial blog piece about Black Boy, the dog who ultimately saved me from going too far down the evil rabbit hole that is the cult of PETA, PETA predictably responded by writing me off as a vindictive ex-employee out for revenge — a plot for revenge, apparently, that took me 15 years to cook up.  Because I’m just that slow. Whatever. Then came the point where PETA attempted to put into jeopardy my husband’s job with lies and, frankly, libelous accusations. That pissed me off, because when you mess with Eric’s job you mess with my family — my children. And that is beyond the pale. But their threats were hollow and we all knew it so we shook it off. Then came the relentless cyber bullying by one, or several, anonymous Twitter users — all in PETA’s name, all tagging PETA (so they were seeing it), which they did nothing about. My own moral compass would have led me to do whatever I could to stop attacks — attacks of a sexual nature, attacks that made racial and anti-LGBTQ slurs, attacks that accused me of abusing my children — in my name. PETA, not so much. But all of that was predictable so I rolled with it. And my older kids (who are on Twitter and, therefore, saw everything), bless them, handled the attacks with grace.

But when I read PETA’s latest lie about me I was a little gobsmacked because it was so out of left field.

Upon information and belief, the blog author is a prior employee of PETA who was terminated after a few months because her instability prevented her from doing her job.

Now, I don’t know how that sounds to ya’ll, but it sounds to me like PETA’s legal team is implying I was (am?) emotionally unstable and, therefore, unable to do my job. Which is news to me. I can be kind of flighty, sometimes a little scatterbrained, and, thankfully, my friends seem to think my awkward quirkiness is cute. But emotionally unstable? Wow, PETA, kudos to you for creativity. And for actually surprising me for once. Again, with libel, but I didn’t see this particular lie coming. Because, frankly, the only thing that prevented me from doing my job the way that PETA wanted me to was my humanity.

I suppose they’re trying to paint me as unhinged for the judge. Maybe, once again, they’re trying to intimidate me in the hopes that I’ll sit down and shut up. I can’t control what the judge thinks of me, I can only continue to tell the truth. But I would like, once again, to tell PETA a few things.

First, I am still Honey Badger. I don’t care what lies you put out there, I don’t care what people might assume about me. The only opinions about me that matter are those of the people I love — and they all know I’m telling the truth. Your attempts to soil my reputation mean nothing to me.

Second, I am not backing down. I am still determined to do whatever I can to expose the fact that you don’t run a shelter, you run a slaughterhouse. I am determined to do whatever I can to help the Zarate family find justice in their lawsuit against you. And every time you make up new lies about me the only  thing that happens is I dig my heels deeper into the muck that is the truth about PETA. You don’t scare me, you can’t intimidate me. But keep talking, because with each lie you tell about me, my fire burns brighter. And, once again, I won’t back down.