Welcome to the 20th Century
Residents of my home state can finally sleep easy tonight, after holding their collective breath over the outcome of tense lawsuit :
No cockfighting in Oklahoma, the Supreme Court says.The justices turned down an appeal Monday from cockfighting supporters, who have lost at the ballot box and in courts.
Oklahoma voters in 2002 approved a ban on the blood sport, in which knives or cutting barbs are attached to roosters, which usually fight to the death.
The Oklahoma Supreme Court upheld voters’ decision earlier this year, prompting the appeal to the Supreme Court. Justices rejected it without comment.
For some background on this issue, check out this CNN transcript from a couple years ago. (As an exercise in self-examination, keep your eye out for the title they give to the cockfighting proponent in the transcript and ask yourself if your reaction to that is similar to how conservatives may feel about a similar label on the left.)
CROWLEY: Yes, cockfighting is legal in Oklahoma. Has been since the 60’s, when a court ruled that animal cruelty laws do not apply to chickens because chickens are not animals.Animal rights activisits have been crying foul ever since.
Enough with the puns. This is serious stuff to Janet Halliburton, animal rights’ activists, lawyer.
JANET HALLIBURTON, ANIMAL RIGHTS ACTIVISIT: These cockfighters involve their children in the cockfights. And so the children see these animals being slashed to death for gambling purposes. And this desensitization makes it more likely that there’s going to be human violence involved at some other stage..
CROWLEY: Six eighty-seven would make cockfighting and raising cockfighters illegal. It is a big bucks battle.
COMMERCIAL ANNOUNCER: Knives strapped to bird’s legs. Placed in a pit to fight to the death. They call this sport?
CROWLEY: Oklahoma City, with its faux river walk, trendy restaurants and yes, coffee shops, may seem an unlikely spot for a divise debate over cockfighting. But the truth is you don’t have to leave city limits to find a view and views that are very different.
Devin Smith, husband, father, radio ad salesman, game foul breeder, cockfighter.
DEVIN SMITH, FREEDOM OF CHOICE ADVOCATE: Well, I enjoy the competition of it, just to be honest with you. There’s a competition — maybe it’s a man thing.
CROWLEY: Smith sees 687 as an overwritten first step by out of state liberals to take away his freedom and change Oklahoma culture.
There are fewer bucks on this side but enough to make the point.
COMMERCIAL ANNOUNCER: The long-term goal is to outlaw fishing, hunting, rodeos, all animal sports. They say these sports are cruel and inhumane. Sportsmen, it’s time to wake up. These California radicals are here.
As Brad Carson recently said in The New Republic, “The culture war is real, and it is a conflict not merely about some particular policy or legislative item, but about modernity itself.” Apparently some of our fellow culture warriors are still struggling with modernity a little harder than others.
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“Animal rights activisits have been crying foul ever since.”
I love a good pun!
Comment by Charlie — November 15, 2004 @ 8:49 pm
We still have legal cockfightin here in Louisiana, which was something I didn’t even know until about a year ago. I was shocked to find out any state in the nation still called this a legal practice, much less my own.
The establishment Democratic Party choice for our last Senate election was Chris John, a trucking co. owner from Crowley, LA (right smack in the middle of Cajun country), who has been the greatest friend to cockfighting interests in the state of Louisiana (and even in the federal government on some shipping issues regarding gamecocks). I voted for another Democrat in the race, but I couldn’t be disappointed that one of the last men in the country who is willing to go to the mat for cockfighting interests was soundly defeated in our state, even if the price was ceding a Senate seat to a Republican for the first time in the history of non-Reconstruction Louisiana politics.
As for that culture war crap, on election day this year we also passed a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to hunt and fish. Maybe that was a reaction to all the anti-cockfighting rhetoric that hit our airwaves from animal rights groups during the last year or so.
Comment by ricky prado — November 15, 2004 @ 8:56 pm
Forget cock-fighting, when is bear-baiting coming back?!? We can do hymn-singing, book-burning, and bear-baiting, all in one holy mother-of-a-festival!
Comment by jeff — November 16, 2004 @ 7:52 am
I’m so relieved to find out that none of that chicken I’ve been eating for the past 37 years was actually an animal.
Comment by FreedomByChoice — November 16, 2004 @ 10:58 am
Um, I don’t want to start a firestorm here, but I think the ban on cockfighting is a little silly, if inevitable. In this day and age of “animal rights activists,” a sport in which animals fight to the death is not going to remain legal for long.
That said, I don’t have a problem with cockfights, and it IS a a part of Oklahoma culture. I don’t have a lot of empathy for chickens, but even if I did, I would think they would have a better life fighting than they would cramped in concrete cages, their beaks burned off, being pumped full of antibiotics and hormones, waiting to die. At least a cockfight afford to chance to go out in a blaze of glory.
And is there not some merit to the slippery slope argument? If you can outlaw a recreational activity that kills chickens, isn’t there a way to interpret that as a precedent that you can outlaw a recreational activity that kills deer and fowl (hunting), or even fish?
A bit of an overreaction, perhaps, but it’s conceivable. This is an atmosphere in which PETA is launching a campaign to stop people from eating fish, because fish can feel pain and are as intelligent as any other animal. LINK
Fish? Gimme a break.
An unpopular opinion, perhaps, but there it is.
Comment by scotty — November 17, 2004 @ 12:33 pm
hey scotty- i’m not gonna get into the issue of whether fish have feelings or not. or whether the life of a cock-fighter is better life for a chicken. You obviously don’t care about animals. that’s fine.
but here’s some non-Peta info about the irresponsibility of the fishing industry and how it impacts the environment and the seafood industry:
http://montereybayaquarium.com/cr/cr_seafoodwatch/sfw_issues.asp
not to mention that due to pollution, the mercury levels in fish is extremely dangerous for human consumption. even if you don’t give a shit about the life of a fish, you should care about yourself enough to not poison your body.
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2004/11/17/waste_dump/index.html
Comment by tom — November 17, 2004 @ 1:01 pm