Did Pie-Throwing Activists Give All Vegans a Bad Name?

If you plan to read it on Muni, maybe you should hide the cover?

​Did it have a lard crust?: The politics of meat ― and of not-meat ― can get nasty. Just ask the author who had publicly turned away from veganism and got pied in the face Saturday at the Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair, as she addressed an audience in the Hall of Flowers in Golden Gate Park. Today, Lierre Keith told the Chron's Demian Bulwa that her attackers (whose pie was reportedly laced with cayenne) were "cowards." In her book, The Myth of Vegetarianism, Keith argues (according to Bulwa ― we haven't read Keith's book) that veganism ― not carnivorousness ― is unhealthy, and that large-scale agriculture is destroying the planet. She calls for the eating of ethically raised animals.

Parts of the vegan blogosphere criticized Saturday's violence against Keith, while suggesting she had it coming. At Vegansaurus, mrpenguino weighed in (after the jump):

Assault is not the way to go, and yet I crack a tiny smile because in addition to being a veggie-hating loon, she's also a trans-phobic loon affiliated with RadLesFes, which "is 'unalterably opposed' to 1) anyone, but specifically lesbians in the context of RadLesFes, who in the slightest endorse BDSM or pornography, and 2) trans people, specifically referring to all trans-related health interventions pejoratively as 'mutilations'.

Meanwhile at IndyBay, a statement from a group called Vegans for Sustainable Agriculture suggested vegans were getting a bad rap as violent activists:

We don't need pie to humiliate Lierre Keith. As anarcho-primitivists and Weston A. Price followers condemned all vegans as violent psychopaths after Keith's recent encounter with a spicy pie this weekend, a handful of animal rights activists were peacefully distributing leaflets that strongly disputed some of The Vegetarian Myth's many inaccuracies and misleading claims.

Can't we all just figure it out over dinner?