Center for Consumer Freedom

In Austria, PETA mock-crucified activists wearing masks of pigs and other animals on Good Friday -- right outside St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, where Catholics were celebrating the holiday. Apparently the pig-man died for our "sins of nourishment." (We're pretty sure that even plants die when we eat them.) The Archdiocese of Vienna called the protest "a completely unacceptable falsification of the religious dimension of Good Friday."

Meanwhile, in Australia, PETA was denied a similarly offensive and ridiculous display when billboard owners in Sydney refused to put up an Easter message featuring a bloody, crucified lamb.

Especially laughable was PETA's misappropriation of the Bible in its grotesque Austrian protest. Many of the activists carried signs reading "Du sollst nicht töten," German for "Thou shalt not kill." We're not Bible experts, but considering that the Ten Commandments appear in a book that explicitly condones the eating of meat, we're pretty confident that it's not exactly an animal-rights tract.

PETA has a long and tawdry history of distorting religious traditions to advance its own agenda. Download a copy of our report, "Holy Cows: How PETA twists religion to push animal 'rights'" and learn more about how far they'll go.