I’m at least somewhat sympathetic to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals; if nothing else, they raise issues that many, many people would just as soon never think about. But this case strikes me as a misallocation of what one can only assume are limited resources.

Apparently they were chastising a pastor in Alaska because his church’s website advertised a “live Nativity scene.” The PETA-ites took this to mean that live animals were being used, but it turns out they were people dressed as animals.

But, even supposing live animals were being used, wouldn’t this be a comparatively minor concern? Why expend precious time and resources on something so trivial? (Not to mention the negative publicity.)

Far and away the greatest amount of animal suffering, quantitatively speaking, has to be that of animals raised for food. In fact, I read somewhere recently that something like 99% of the animals that human beings come in contact with are those raised for food. So, wouldn’t it make sense for PETA to expend nearly all its resources on that?

Maybe if there’s a little left over they could concern themselves with other forms of what they consider to be animal cruelty (fur, hunting, animal testing, etc.), but I would think live Nativity scenes would be somewhere way down toward the bottom of any reasonable list of priorities.