I’ve tried to avoid reading anything about the horrific Greyhound bus death. I’ve tried to avoid finding out as few details as possible about it. I can’t imagine what the victims family and friends must be going through or what the victim must have gone through but I’m a strong believer that people inadvertently pushed into the media spotlight should really be left alone and at best anything from strangers should be supportive in order to avoid further victimizing those who are grieving.
Not one, but two notoriously attention-whoring groups have both decided to use this poor young man’s sensationalist death for their own ends.
I wouldn’t say that PeTA reached a new low in attempting to compare his death to the slaughter of animals. However they had already reached rock bottom with their “holocaust on a plate” ad campaign.
The other group, the notoriously anti-gay Westboro Baptists also decided to piggyback on this news item. The connection (if any) that they appear to have been trying to make was even more tenuous than that of PeTA, and their tactics possibly even more appalling. Somehow, in their sick, twisted little heads, this murder was apparently God’s Wrath against Canada’s tolerance of abortion and gays and have decided to picket the funeral.
Each group is exploiting a case that generated international headlines merely to attract attention to themselves and their causes. The problem is there are legitimate concerns for animal welfare, and there are legitimate reasons to oppose abortion, but sensationalist tactics by extremist groups do absolutely nothing to further any cause or stimulate rational debate, but only go to show thinking people what these groups really are.
Both groups at the core appear to be filled with people utterly devoid of humanity. You have to be a complete sociopath to be capable of the tactics that these two groups are using. To use some random, innocent man’s horrific death as a media platform is simply vulgar.
littleblackduck 