Center for Consumer Freedom

That's a summary of PETA's relationship with convicted arsonist Rodney Coronado, as delivered on Friday night's "20/20" broadcast by ABC's John Stossel. In a groundbreaking critique of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Stossel documented the money trail between PETA and a violent Animal Liberation Front criminal, showing millions of Americans the darker side of the animal-rights group.

PETA president Ingrid Newkirk insisted on camera, straight-faced, that Coronado is "a fine young man and a school teacher." But Stossel fired back, noting: "a few months ago he was taped urging others to burn buildings down."

And then, in a radical departure from the typical he-said/she-said of network news debates, Stossel let Rodney Coronado speak for himself, thanks to video obtained by the Center for Consumer Freedom.

"I wish I didn't have to stand up here," Coronado says in our footage, "and talk about and justify and encourage direct action -- encourage breaking the law, encourage burning down buildings... but I do."

"So now you know," concluded Stossel, "when you give your contribution to PETA, this is where some of it goes."

In the few days since the broadcast, the ABC News on-line bulletin board has received over 3,000 viewer responses. Although a handful of assorted lunatics weighed in -- including one who insisted she'd rather see her child die of cancer than embrace animal testing -- the majority expressed outrage that PETA continues to hoodwink the public about its true objectives.

The following is a sampling of what ordinary Americans told ABC about PETA:

• "PETA seems to have an agenda that, if put into practice, would eliminate all farming."
  
  
• "PETA believes they are blowing up buildings for a good cause. So do terrorists."
  
  
• "People who have no experience with animals, with farms, who are young and need a cause, have flocked to the animal rights movement. They now seem to care more for chickens than their friends, neighbors, [and] children."
  
  
• "I know we face a lot of bigger challenges in the world today, but PETA stands for everything against mankind's freedoms & choices. It's not their opinions that bother me as much as it is what they are trying to take away."
  
  
• "If you want to be a vegetarian, great. Good for you. But if I don't want to be one, that's MY choice, not yours. PETA is becoming more and more dangerous."
  
  
• "These people are blowing up buildings! ... What makes them any different than the people that that blew up the Trade Centers for their causes?"
  
  
• "I for one am proud to have the right to eat meat or drink milk, and I am also glad that I have the right not to stay up all night worrying that my child will have to grow up in an Iron Lung."
  
  
• "I refuse to buckle under to Islamic terrorists, and I also refuse to buckle under to the domestic terrorism of PETA. Hopefully sometime in the very near future, the new branch of government which deals with Homeland Security will find a way to put a stop to this group and their supporters also."
  
  
• "Would a member of PETA refuse to take penicillin or any other medication to treat their own illness? Suppose they rationalized that the research was acceptable and they took an antibiotic. What about the poor, helpless, bacteria they would be murdering?"