In NYC: On Tuesday, PETA Protested Living Nativity Outside Radio City Music Hall
Editor’s note: Each holiday season, PETA reminds residents and the businesses they support of the many reasons why living nativities are cruel to the animals that participate against their will, usually in cramped and inhumane conditions. Several years ago, a group of animals escaped from their living nativity and tried to flee to the river.
Below, you can see several photos from the organization’s event.
Puppet head protest. Image Credit – PETA
Heads Up! Huge Puppets to Protest Radio City Over Live-Animal Nativity Scenes
What: To take the push for an animal-free Christmas Spectacular to new heights, PETA supporters will be outside Radio City Music Hall on Tuesday and hoist up giant puppets of sheep, camels, and donkeys—representing the real animals still forced to perform in the show’s live Nativity scene—bearing speech bubbles with messages, “Radio City: End Animal Acts Now,” and “I Don’t Want to Be in Your Damn Show!”.
PETA’s action has the backing of actor Alec Baldwin, who took over local airwaves during the show’s opening week in a new video spot calling on Radio City to stop subjecting animals to the stress of being hauled to the city, confined backstage for months, and exposed to the chaos and confusion of a full-blown stage production. PETA is now rallying its members and supporters to urge Chase, Lexus, and Verizon not to sponsor the show until it goes animal-free.
“All we want for Christmas is for Radio City Music Hall to stop dragging stressed animals across the stage and to stop storing them like props backstage between shows,” says PETA Associate Director of Animals in Entertainment Campaigns Melanie Johnson. “PETA says it’s high time, the right time, to make all spirits bright by dazzling audiences with an animal-free production.”
Puppet head protest. Image Credit – PETA
Puppet head protest. Image Credit – PETA
Banner Image: Radio City protest. All Images Credit – PETA
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is the largest animal rights organization in the world, and PETA entities have more than 9 million members and supporters globally. PETA opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview, and focuses its attention on the four areas in which the largest numbers of animals suffer the most intensely for the longest periods of time: in laboratories, in the food industry, in the clothing trade, and in the entertainment business. We also work on a variety of other issues, including the cruel killing of rodents, birds, and other animals who are often considered “pests” as well as cruelty to domesticated animals. PETA works through public education, investigative newsgathering and reporting, research, animal rescue, legislation, special events, celebrity involvement, and protest campaigns.