Please tell us about Lobby For Animals. Why did you start the organization? What need did you see that wasn’t being filled in the animal rights community?
I created Lobby For Animals because I am passionate about animal rights and I felt like more needed to be done to change the laws. When I first started out in my animal advocacy I would speak to whoever I could get to listen, wherever I was. I attended protests, signed petitions, etc. The one thing that kept haunting me was the feeling that there was more that should be done. I kept telling my mom the laws need to be changed on how animals are treated and how abusers are punished. I felt this in my heart but didn’t know how to go about making these changes happen. When I went to the National Animal Rights Conference in 2012 I met Jessica Astrof, an animal rights attorney from New York. I asked a question at one of the conferences and she came over to me afterwards and told me she was impressed with the way I spoke and we started talking. I told her how I wanted to be an animal rights attorney when I got older. We exchanged phone numbers and became friends over the phone. I came to find out she was putting together a lobby committee for next year’s conference and she asked me if I was interested in learning how to lobby. I said sure and we started conferencing and training. It was like a light bulb went off in my brain. This was what was missing. Having the chance to address proposed bills before they were passed was so crucial to bringing about change. Speaking to the legislators who approve or deny the bills was the answer. I started working on a flyer for the committee and sent it to Jessica. She loved it and was impressed by my computer skills. She asked me if I wanted to take over a domain she purchased and hadn’t done anything with. She said she was going to originally use it for the committee, but never did and I could do whatever I wanted with it.
The mission of Lobby For Animals is to reach out to all those who have made a commitment to speak up for animals and encourage all animal rights activists from all walks of life to join us in our campaign to end animal cruelty one bill at a time. Lobby For Animals offers training videos on how to speak to your legislators, observational videos of actual calls to legislators, as well as templates to use for your correspondence, instructions on how to get started, who to contact and how, and specific tips on exactly how to maximize your efforts in lobbying. I knew I wanted to post training videos to the site because I felt like if I talked to people about how easy it is to lobby it would be more effective than just reading about it. I also knew I wanted to have a section for people to link directly to their representatives. Everything else has pretty much just been coming to me as I build the site.
As far as the need goes, we as animal advocates need to have our voices heard in the legislative arena. There are a lot of us out there who are passionate about animal rights and bringing about changes and if every single person who attended a protest or signed a petition online took the same amount of time and contacted their legislator, think about the impact that would have! It’s a phone call or a letter. We spend hours at protests raising awareness on our causes. What are 10-15 more minutes to write a letter, email or make a call? If we are at the protest or signing the petition we have already looked into the cause and know that we want to support it, so just take that information you have learned and bring it to the next level: contact your legislator about it. Laws need to be changed if we are going to win this fight. We need to have legislators in office that are willing to propose the bills and pass the laws we need to see passed and the only way those things are going to happen is for us as animal advocates to get political.
What are your plans for Lobby For Animals? What will people see in the future?
My plans for the organization are simple. I want to reach as many people as I can and get as many people politically active for animal rights issues as possible (which are also environmental issues and civil liberties issues as well, as they are all connected). I’d like to set up a subscribers list and some sort of an alert system so that whenever new legislation is introduced regarding animal rights, I would post an alert to my subscribers so that they can take action as necessary. I plan on making a lot more training videos on things like attending town meetings and delegate committees. I will also be posting templates to use to write to your representatives. In the long run I’d like to be able to start going to schools and speak to elementaryto high school students on the importance of lobbying and protecting the rights of animals, living a cruelty free lifestyle, and also protecting our rights of freedom of speech. I really believe that if we learned when we were young about kind choices and learned that even though we are young we have a voice there would be a lot less cruelty accepted in this world. It needs to start with us kids, because no offense but most grown-ups are pretty set in their ways. If we learn as kids that we have choices in what we eat, how we choose our products, what we stand up for and what our rights are I believe we would be living in a much better world. Think about all that we know now that our parents didn’t know growing up. Maybe if they had known that the choices they were making would affect our health, our environment, our rights and our planet they would have made better choices. Well, that’s the awareness I want to spread. We have to stand up and say we want a change and the best place to do that is with our legislators but it has to start in our schools and in our homes and in teaching each other. So I guess what I am saying is to me Lobby For Animals is more than just a website, it’s a means to educate people on standing up for what they believe in and giving them the tools and knowledge to do it, regardless of the topic.
Many vegan activists are critical of legislative approaches, such as California’s Proposition 2 or United Egg Producer’s bill that would set conditions for egg-laying hens. Lobby For Animals is asking people to get involved at the legislative level. Have you encountered opposition within the movement, and/or can you address why you favor this tactic?
These types of bills are always very controversial. There are tons of animal advocates that differ in their opinions on these issues. It’s tough. Lobby For Animals stance on this would be to direct people to both sides of the argument. We are not trying to force people to lobby for one side or the other, just to raise awareness and give people the tools to support their views in legislation.
I have mixed feelings as well. As much as I don’t want to see people eating animals, and as much as I don’t want them in cages of any kind, I am also aware that this is not going to happen overnight. Part of me feels like better living conditions is not an answer but it is a step in the right direction for future animal rights bills to be introduced. It’s kind of like the work I do with Fin Free Florida. There is nothing more that I would like to see than for sharks to not be fished any more, but that’s not going to happen right now. Cutting off the demand for shark fin products cuts down on the demand to fish them, which in turn will help in the conservation efforts, protect the sharks and our ecosystem, which are all steps in the right direction. Bills like this are not an answer to a very big problem but they can chip away at the problem and pave the way to better legislation for animals. Like I said it’s very tricky and I myself am still torn on my personal feelings. I want to actually read the proposal and then make a more educated decision. I haven’t had a chance to read more than the arguments for and against.