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April 1, 2002
Cash For Crime
Over 16,000 people have signed an online petition calling on the IRS to revoke PETA's tax-exempt status. Why?
PETA donated $1,500 to the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), an FBI-labeled terrorist organization, in 2001. PETA gave $5,000 to the "Josh Harper Support Committee" to assist a criminal affiliated with the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), which FBI Special Agent David Szady called "by any sense or any definition… a true domestic terrorism group," who has been arrested numerous times and convicted for assaulting a police officer. PETA has also given $2,000 to David Wilson, then a national spokesperson for ALF, who has told the press: "We started with animal rights, but we've expanded to wildlife actions like the one in Vail" -- the 1998 ELF firebombing of a Vail, Colorado ski resort, which destroyed $12 million in property and endangering dozens of firefighters. PETA served as the de facto spokesgroup for ALF in the late 1980's, holding press conferences to praise ALF criminals and field media questions just hours after laboratories were destroyed or buildings burned down. In 1995, PETA gave $45,200 to the "support committee" of Rodney Coronado, a convicted arsonist who firebombed a research facility at Michigan State University, and also "loaned" $25,000 to Coronado's father. (He never paid it back, and PETA never complained.)
Do PETA's mainstream donors at the Park Foundation ($200,000 between 1997 and 1999) and the Glaser Family Foundation ($179,488 between 1999 and 2001) know what they're paying for?
Over 16,000 people have signed an online petition calling on the IRS to revoke PETA's tax-exempt status. Why?
Do PETA's mainstream donors at the Park Foundation ($200,000 between 1997 and 1999) and the Glaser Family Foundation ($179,488 between 1999 and 2001) know what they're paying for?
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