Here's a few quotes from "powerful" AR activists.

"We feel that animals have the same rights as retarded children."
-Alex Pacheco, Director, PETA, New York Times, January 14, 1989.

"The life of an ant and that of my child should be granted equal consideration."
-Michael W. Fox, Vice President, The Human Society of the United States, The Inhumane Society, New York, 1990.

"I don’t use the word "pet." I think it’s speciesist language. I prefer "companion animal." For one thing, we would no longer allow breeding. People could not create different breeds. There would be no pet shops. If people had companion animals in their homes, those animals would have to be refugees from the animal shelters and the streets. You would have a protective relationship with them just as you would with an orphaned child. But as the surplus of cats and dogs (artificially engineered by centuries of forced breeding) declined, eventually companion animals would be phased out, and we would return to a more symbiotic relationship – enjoyment at a distance."
-Ingrid Newkirk, PETA vice-president, quoted in The Harper's Forum Book, Jack Hitt, ed., 1989, p.223.

"Arson, property destruction, burglary and theft are 'acceptable crimes' when used for the animal cause."
-Alex Pacheco, Director, PETA

"Andrew Cunanan, because he got Versace to stop doing fur."
-PETA's David Mathews reply when to Genre request for "Men We Love"

"In a war you have to take up arms and people will get killed, and I can support that kind of action by petrol bombing and bombs under cars, and probably at a later stage, the shooting of vivisectors on their doorsteps. It's a war, and there's no other way you can stop vivisectors."
-Tim Daley, British Animal Liberation Front Leader