What do you get when you cross a seven-foot peapod with an equally tall smiling carrot? Why, a veggie wedding. The nuptials of Penelo Pea Pod and PeTA’s Chris P. Carrot will cap the first U.S. Veggie Pride Parade next Sunday in Greenwich Village.
The parade starts at noon in the Meatpacking District, where Ninth Avenue meets Gansevoort, Greenwich, and Little West 12th streets. It ends at Washington Square Park.
“I like going through Greenwich Village because I respect it for its legacy with progressive ideas, and vegetarianism is a progressive idea,” said Pamela Rice, parade organizer and founder of the sponsoring VivaVeggie Society.
Rice, inspired by a similar event in Paris, has been organizing and planning for more than 10 months. “It is really going to be bigger than I thought. Mostly it is because of Facebook, MySpace and other online social networks rallying every vegan New Yorker to be there.”
Already receiving angry emails, Rice said the event is supposed to be a fun and does not anticipate much protest.
“We will be chanting and some people do get huffy about it. That’s our right to go down the street and carry our signs,” said Rice.
Representatives from veggie-friendly restaurants and vegans dressed in fruit and vegetable costumes will also march to the park. Vegan friendly exhibitors like Wild Wood Organics and PeTA will provide free literature and food. And prizes will be given for best signs and costumes. Speakers will include Karen Davis, the founder of United Poultry Concerns, and Odette J. Wilkens, the executive director of the Equal Justice Alliance, a coalition of animal rights and social justice groups.
Rice says she hopes the event will allow vegetarians to come out of the shadows while dispelling misinformation about vegetarianism.
With the “go green” movement gaining prominence, Rice says, “We’ve lost our orientation to our food. There remains a conspicuous silence toward animal products that we need to examine.”
-- Kathleen Bulson
MORE: Parade blog
Comments (5)
This is great!!! The ethics of what we eat needs to be brought to the forefront of people's decision-making process. I've never understood how extending compassion to other living things entices such angry responses, but apparently some people feel threatened by it. I'm glad to see a veggie diet celebrated.
Go, you vegans! You rock! I wish I could join you in your first-ever Veggie Pride Parade, but know that many others, like me, will be applauding all of you Carrots, Peas, and just plain (but extraordinary) veggie humans.
This is WONDERFUL!!! I won't be able to attend either, seeing that i just found out about this event and live about 3 hours away. Thanks for putting this together! have a veganlicious time!!
If there was any way I could attend, I would. Can't leave though. I was in my own veggie pride event last week at a local eatery that had a fund raiser for a school. I donated two vegan cheescakes, two vegan blueberry cakes, egg-less salad wraps, and hummus wraps. People raved!!!
The think that strikes me as so very wierd is how sick people, even younger people, are getting from eating meat and dairy but they seem too stubborn to change. Meat eating has become some sort of power thing, macho thing, even though animal fat is clogging everything from their brains, to hearts, to genitals. What they think makes them "manly" really inhibits optimal sexual function. The viagra makers love it.
Most of these "manly" dudes wouldn't last a minute on the kill floors of any slaughterhouse. So terribly sad that eating animals is taking such a massive toll on the very fabrtic of social order and our environment. History still repeats itself in a society that , like the poor animals, is processed, not truly educated.
I hope the weather is great for the event....
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I am very proud of the wonderful work that you all have done so far to bring forth this Veggie Parade in New York. I think it's very brave, thoughtful and compassonated of you to spread all these great news about this vegan diet which not only help to maintain one's good health, but at the same time, eating a meatless diet will help to spare many of our co-inhabitants animals and save our planet from the climate change/Global Warming. Thank you so much for all your GREAT work and may GOD always blesses you on your noble tasks. Khanhmei from Seattle, WA.