Animal rights.

It’s a difficult topic, one that often inspires impassioned responses and heated debate.

Unfortunately, one of the leading voices on this debate can’t stop trivializing its own issue.

An advertising campaign abandoned recently by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals stating, “Milk sucks … Got Beer?”, points out once again why the general public perceives PETA as left-wing nuts.

The ads, which claim that dairy farmers treat cows inhumanely and that beer is healthier than milk, were placed on bottle openers and billboards across the nation. They were pulled March 16 after Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) expressed outrage over them

The ads might have come down, but the damage to PETA’s credibility will take much longer to recede.

From the organization that popularized tossing buckets of blood on pedestrians who dared to sport fur coats on city streets, one would assume the bar of offensiveness would be set too high to clear again, but some people just love to overachieve.

The point of the ad campaign is surely to shock viewers and subsequently raise awareness of dairy farmers’ supposed mistreatment of cows.

The group’s subsequent ad campaign is along the same vein. It consists of milk cartons featuring a calf in the spot often reserved for pictures of missing children

The idea is that if an ad is so nasty it creates a national reaction, the issue of dairy abuse will also get national play.

But raising awareness of a certain issue does not inherently mean that you must offend. These guerrilla tactics have become the center of attention, not the alleged mistreatment of dairy cows.

So instead of instigating a discussion about animal rights, PETA itself has become the topic of discussion.

And not only are they failing to do anything to help the poor cows they claim to care so much about, they are hurting the credibility of every supporter of animal rights.

It’s a lot easier for critics to write off pressure to grant more rights to animals when they can connect such pressure with a radical group such as PETA.

When animal rights issues do come up, it will be hard for political moderates to separate PETA’s fanatical tactics and miscarriages of truth from the concerns of rational individuals who just want to keep people from beating up cats.

But apparently, PETA was too busy “sticking to their guns” to think about that.

Iowa State Daily Editorial Board: Sara Ziegler, Greg Jerrett, Kate Kompas, Carrie Tett and David Roepke.