San Angelo allows sheep statue after PETA claim
When the public arts commission of San Angelo rejected the application to exhibit a politically charged sheep statue in late October, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals argued it violated the First Amendment. In response, the San Angelo City Council and City Manager Daniel Valenzuela appealed the art commission’s decision.
The statue, featuring images of sheep designed by New Yorker cartoonist Harry Bliss with a message encouraging people to “wear your own skin,” will now be displayed as part of the Sheep Spectacular public art project in downtown San Angelo, formerly recognized as the Wool Capital of the World due to the region’s robust sheep industry.
During the initial vote, arts commission members rejected the statue, deeming it was at odds with San Angelo’s extensive history in the wool and mohair industry.
In its appeal, PETA stated that the commission members did not reference any “policy, guiding criteria or standards to support the denial.”
In search of an answer, the organization sent a public records request searching for these guidelines and on Nov. 15 received records that “did not include any such documents or other applicable standards,” according to the letter.
“The City Council’s adoption of the Commission’s decision would violate PETA’s constitutional rights, as its decision apparently discriminated based on viewpoint and was unmoored from any objective standards guiding its ad hoc determinations,” the letter states.
PETA also pointed out that there are already 110 statues within the city, “but not one addressing how sheep are often beaten, mutilated, and violently killed for wool.”
As a result, the City Council denied the commission’s recommendation to reject the statue last week.
“Sheep feel pain and fear, love their flock members, and don’t deserve to be cut to ribbons for wool, something that happens in every shearing shed we have visited,” PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman said in a news release. “PETA is urging Mayor Gunter and the rest of the city council to ensure that “E(n)d Shearin’” takes its lawful place downtown so that people who see it understand the suffering behind wool sweaters and scarves and choose to wear vegan. Shearing isn’t just a haircut — it’s often a scary, painful procedure.”