Lady Gaga has become the face of hip-hop over the last several years, and at this year’s Video Music Awards (VMAs) she took center stage once again.Gaga led all artists by receiving a whopping eight awards and caught everyone’s attention with her eye-popping outfits. One of which has received more recognition and criticisms than others.

While accepting her video of the year award, Gaga strutted up on stage and stunned the audience by wearing a dress, boots and purse composed completely of meat. Immediately afterwards, Gaga started collecting backlash from organizations such as PETA, without them truly knowing the reasoning behind the dress.

At first, I too, was judgmental of Lady Gaga because I saw no point in wearing a meat dress just for the attention. But after hearing her side of the story it became evident to me that this was no act and it was completely necessary. Gaga’s actions garnered interest about the needed change in governmental oppression of gays.

When her fans were put under attack, Gaga did what any good leader would do and took a stand. Specifically she took a stand against the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that advocates gays in the military keeping their sexual preferences secret or facing discharge.

Lady Gaga brought four former soldiers to the VMAs, all who were affected by the policy.

In an interview with Ellen DeGeneres, a known vegan and lesbian, Gaga spoke about the dress in detail.

“It’s certainly no disrespect to anyone that’s vegan or vegetarian,” Gaga responded. “As you know, I am the most judgment-free human being on the Earth. It has many interpretations, but for me this evening, it’s ‘If we don’t stand up for what we believe in, we don’t fight for our rights, pretty soon we’re going to have as much rights as the meat on our bones.'”

PETA released a statement attacking Lady Gaga for always trying to go “over the top” on her stunts and even went on to say, “A lot of young people will not be buying her records if she keeps this stuff up.”

I find these types of declarations quite silly, even though I do support many of the actions PETA takes in animal rights movements.

One of the main reasons people enjoy Lady Gaga is because of her unique personality. They enjoy seeing her unusual exploits. If anything, this dress and her words will bring her more fans and popularity.

Lady Gaga is one of the freest-spirited women in the celebrity world and in no way do I believe that she meant any harm in what she did. PETA took the wrong direction in attacking Gaga and I am not afraid to say that. PETA should continue fighting the companies that are slaughtering the cows instead of the woman who is fighting a legitimate cause.

The average American consumes over 200 pounds of meat per year and most do not see this number going down anytime soon. While I respect PETA’s cause, I don’t see the effectiveness in harassing Lady Gaga. Many other people eat plenty of meat and harm more animals. She is just a small fraction of this group.

This animal had already been killed so why not fight for something worthwhile? Why not stand up for what you believe in if the animal is already dead?

With this, Lady Gaga presents an idea that I do not think is thought about in daily life – when it comes to what you believe in, is there a point where you can go too far?

And for all of you who are against the use of the meat dress you can rest assured that her dress is being preserved as beef jerky and won’t see the light of day again.