Killing Beautiful Creatures For Fur

To the Editor:

Today many of us are trying to find our faith and spirituality in so many different ways. People are meditating their way through spas and retreats. You will hear celebrities on TV talking about their trek to Tibet or the Holy Land and how they have become so enlightened and want to help the world.

What I see is celebrities and designers dressing beautifully, telling us how God has helped them get to this place. These are the people influencing our children. So when they put on their furs don’t they think about the unbelievable suffering they have caused these poor creatures? Do they not think about how these animals are electrocuted, clubbed to death, or caught in traps and left to suffer tremendous pain for days before someone comes back to end their misery? Where does spirituality begin and where does it end?

Clothing should not have to be at the expense of massacring beautiful creatures for their fur. We have been educated on the facts of fur and not longer need it for survival. Our hope and conscience should be to save these creatures from God.

It is such a taboo to talk against designers who use fur. Fashion magazines do not print anything against designers or about the horrific treatment of animals on fur farms because they would lose their advertising. So if you don’t talk about how these sentient beings are treated, how we let them live unacceptable lives, “it doesn’t happen.” There are only a few celebrities that have the confidence and conviction to stand up for their beliefs. It is so sad to see celebrities talk about animal rights then the next time you see them in print or in a movie they are wearing fur. What has happened to our spiritual awakening, standing up and being dedicated to helping creatures from being brutally tortured? This is our choice, our spirituality and it can be justified for a fur coat?

Where have our values and our humanity gone? We have tried to save the elephants, the tigers, pandas, and rhinos from being massacred off the face of this earth. Why is it that our paths to enlightenment are not meeting on common ground? Stripping these animals of their fur for pure fashion sake is senseless. Like Pope John Paul said, animals have souls.

There are designers like Stella McCartney, stores like Wet Seal who are doing the right thing. Why and how does our conscience let us revert to something that is totally barbaric and inhumane? The Japanese are now eating whale burgers so we aren’t saving the whales either. This is our world now and this is how history will remember our culture, our values, and our humanity.

So I am off to write letters to the designers and clothes manufacturers to let them know that their industry will not influence my ethics or my morality. I hope you will join me.

Lynn Printy

135 Boggs Hill Road, Newtown                                  August 24, 2005