Photo Credit: Baylor University
Following the recent news that Baylor University’s alumni group is breaking its longstanding tradition of an annual trip to SeaWorld Texas and instead holding their summer event at Six Flags, speculation began to swirl as to why an alumni group’s vacation plans was newsworthy and what were the circumstances surrounding this announcement.
Baylor’s assistant director of sustainability and special projects, Smith Getterman, cited the propaganda film Blackfish as the reason for the move. Telling the school’s newspaper, The Baylor Lariat:
“We firmly believe all that we talk and preach here, in the Office of Sustainability about caring for creation,” Getterman said. “That means the beasts of the land, the birds of the air and the fish in the sea or in this case mammals.”
PETA’s offensively named Jesus People for Animals was very, very quick with a supporting blog post. “Hallelujah!” exclaimed the radical activists. PETA has a long history of mocking Jesus and offering up disdainful barbs at Christians. This time, they were in full support.
“God made wild animals to be free and to live in the natural habitats He made especially for them.” wrote Jesus People for Animals’ Sarah Withrow King
Some folks online, and others in the mainstream press, began to wonder if there was a reason behind this group’s decision to make a very public change in vacation plans. Could there be something going on between the world’s largest Baptist University and an organization with a long history of contempt for the Christian faith.
Interestingly, PETA has a history of protesting schools and their mascots – “Uga” the Bulldog at the University of Georgia (PETA suggested a robot dog, instead), Mike the Tiger at Louisiana State or the University of South Carolina.
Baylor University is famous for their two bears, Joy and Lady. The two are the University’s mascots. They’ve been in the care of the school since they were 4-month-old cubs. Now Joy is 14-years-old and Lady is 13-years-old. The school has even built a nice, sprawling habitat for the two and they look to have really good seats for football games.
So where’s the outrage from PETA over Joy and Lady now? Back in 2012, PETA encouraged people to write Baylor and politely protest their holding of two wild bears.
The Motley Fool media and investment company picked up on the bear angle, writing for NASDAQ.com:
Just so we’re clear on the hypocritical nature of some anti-SeaWorld behavior: Baylor itself keeps a pair of bears on campus. Baylor’s own Web page justifying the captivity is a snapshot of one of the chained bears, and explains that the animals are no longer fed Dr Pepper. No, I’m not making that up.
All of this has led some to wonder if PETA approached a Baylor alum, like Smith Getterman, with renewed threats to protest the captivity of the two bears?
Or is PETA’s blind hatred of SeaWorld leading to this obvious hypocrisy and tarnishing a university’s reputation?
The questions are circulating around this curious publicity stunt. Maybe Mr. Getterman’s fellow alumni can ask him this while they’re at their event in Six Flags this summer.
Just remember, at some point PETA will be back for the bears.