PETA Doesn't Want Obama to Pardon Any Turkeys

While US President Barack Obama is getting ready to pardon one of this year's Thanksgiving turkeys, green-oriented organization PETA hopes that the country's leader can still be persuaded to skip 2012's pardoning ceremony.

Given the fact that granting one's presidential pardon to one very lucky such bird is all about making sure it does not get slaughtered (for Thanksgiving, at least), some might wonder why it is that PETA is dead set on not allowing the ceremony to proceed as planned.

Apparently, it is PETA's belief that this pardoning does very little justice to the millions of other turkeys that are about to be brutally killed, stuffed, cooked and served with mashed potatoes. And maybe some gravy.

Bottom line, one pardoned turkey does not make it OK to kill countless other birds belonging to this species. What needs be done is giving up on meat altogether, PETA says.

As far as PETA is concerned, turkeys are smart and gentle creatures, capable of complex mental and emotional processes. From this standpoint, turkeys are quite similar to fish.

USA Today quotes fragments of the letter PETA has sent to US President Barack Obama in order to convince him to see reason and drop the pardoning ceremony.

“This year, we encourage you to forgo this event, which so many Americans find offensive, and choose a delicious, healthy Tofurky roast for your family's holiday table. Thank you for your consideration. We wish you, your family, and all Americans a happy, violence-free Thanksgiving,” reads PETA's appeal to the President.

Furthermore, the ceremony is labeled as a “sorely outdated event” that “makes light of the mass slaughter of some 46 million gentle, intelligent birds and portrays the United States' president as being in some sort of business partnership with the turkey-killing industry.”

For the time being, there is still no news with respect to how President Obama reacted to PETA's letter.