A group that’s passionate about animal rights will put the emphasis on “passion” this weekend. PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, came up with a strategy a few years ago — being so outrageous, even people who don’t agree with its positions are talking about the group’s staged public events. Volunteers have dressed in nothing but body paint and been paraded in a cage, touted the claim that Jesus was a vegetarian, and bought billboards implying that men who don’t eat meat are better lovers. Hoping to drive home that point, PETA says a women in sexy lingerie and a Marine who’s an Iraq war vet will “passionately make out” in a bed placed in downtown Des Moines’ Nollen Plaza Saturday afternoon. The slogan for PETA’s “Live Make-Out Tour”, coming also to Omaha, Wichita, Little Rock, Madison, Lansing, Toronto, Buffalo and Pittsburgh, will be “try a veggie burger in the kitchen for a whopper in the bedroom.”
