Humane Society CEO: You’re a Sinner (Unless You’re Vegan)

Wayne Pacelle recently went on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday, where the two talked about “one of the greatest spiritual issues of our time”—animal rights.

To many people “animal rights” just means treating animals well—but to Pacelle it means we can’t use them for food, medical research, or clothing.

Oprah obviously has a huge pulpit and an audience demographic similar to the one Wayne’s HSUS exploits for money. Pacelle used this opportunity to test out his latest persona: His Holiness Wayne, and he’s here to deliver us from “evil” unto “perfection.”

Oprah said Pacelle’s book taught her that she didn’t need to become a vegan to help the movement. In response, Pacelle said “I don’t want our cause to lead people to believe…[that] you can’t help if you’re not perfect.”

In other words, vegans are in a state of grace, but Wayne is merciful enough to let sinners seek salvation. You just have to give up cheeseburgers, leather belts, and silk shirts to fully get there.

Then His Excellency Wayne, describing how hypocritical humans are, said:

“If you really take a 30,000 foot view of how we’re behaving toward animals … I mean, if someone came down, they’d be like ‘You guys are schizophrenic in your relationship to animals.’”

It’s unclear who, or what, made in Wayne’s image would “come down” to judge us.

This isn’t the first time the animal rights fringe has tried to tap into the religious beliefs of many Americans. PETA has tried twisting religion to fit its ideology for years. To ring in Christians, it claimed Jesus was vegetarian (he wasn’t) and the New Testament shows this (it doesn’t); it urged Muslims, in contradiction to the Qur’ran, to stop eating meat; and advocated for Jews to adopt diets opposed to Talmudic law.

It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to see that even PETA doesn’t believe what it’s saying.  The reality is animal-rights radicals know old cultural beliefs and practices die hard and their transparent outreach to religions is a calculated move to co-opt them to their cause.

At the end of the day, for the zealots at HSUS and PETA animal rights is a religion–but for the rest of us, Wayne and PETA are just false prophets.