05.08.07

Gay Guy + Animal Rights = Party! And You’re Invited!

Posted in Animal Rights, LGBT at 1:35 am by Freeman Wicklund

Is this picture too racy for my clean-cut blog?

Take it from me, when you mix animal rights with a gay guy, you are going to have some fun. That’s why I’m inviting all of you to join Dan (and me) at the DC Borders (1808 K St., NW) this Wednesday (May 9th) at 6:30 (pm ).

You see, pretty boy, animal advocate, and Vice President of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Dan Mathews will be signing his new book, Committed: A Rabble-Rouser’s Memoir.

Dan is the brain-child (emphasis on the child ) behind PETA’s outrageous media-grabbing shenanigans. His party-boy life is filled with celebrities, schmoozing, and jail cells; so you know he will have some good stories to tell.

Despite his rock-star lifestyle, he is passionate and articulate about both gay and animal rights issues. As Dan told Baltimore’s Gay Life:

Gays and lesbians have played a strong role in the animal rights movement, Mathews said, and not just because of him. “I think gays have more sensitivity to animals because we grow up not being understood,” he said – like animals that are considered inferior because they are not human.

True that! Dan hit the nail on the head for me.

He further explains why he focuses most of his activism helping animals:

“Even though I was getting gay bashed and stuff like that, learning what happens to animals in these laboratories and slaughterhouses and fur farms and the volume of animals used and the horrific things done to them to me just seemed like a more emergency situation than even the peril in which I found myself.”

Despite his commitment to animal rights, Dan is passionate on gay issues too. He lives boldly as a gay man, never retreating even one backwards sashay into the closet for political expediency. He also speaks forcefully in behalf of gay rights:

Perhaps because of his own experience, Mathews asserts that gay bashing and bullying in high school should be the other focus of the LGBT rights movement. Older people “forget what a nightmare it is for kids in high school,” he said. “The kids commit suicide for this all the time, and yet it’s not an issue you hear about as much as you do about other gay issues.”

But don’t expect a dry discourse on the rights of gay people and animals from Dan’s book. It sound like it will mostly be about the fun-loving, often-questionable, always-provocative, action-packed antics that keeps Dan and PETA consistently in the headlines; topped with sprinkles of insider celebrity gossip. As Dan told the Washington Blade:

“It’s not a book for animal activists,” he says. “It’s just a book for anybody that likes adventure and wants to fling themselves out in the world. I hope it opens people’s hearts and minds a little bit about how you can live a fuller life by caring about something and also by not being such a sourpuss about life.

See You All There!

Join me (Oh, yeah, and Dan…) at Borders
Wednesday, May 9, 6:30 p.m.
1808 K St., NW
202-466-4999

No RSVP necessary.

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