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Cock and bull stories

Author:   Matt Deatherage  
Posted: 11/7/02; 7:12:19 PM
Topic: Cock and bull stories
Msg #: 395 (top msg in thread)
Prev/Next: 394/396
Reads: 6296

In Tuesday's election, Oklahomans approved a state question (that is, an amendment to the state constitution) banning cockfighting. In case you don't know about this "sport" -- and you probably don't, because it's illegal in 47 states, and now 48 -- cockfighting involves training roosters to attack each other with their feet. Knives are strapped to the feet, and the gamecocks are placed in an arena to fight until one of them dies. The proponents of the measure are indisputably correct in that it is barbaric, it is cruel, and is a relic of bloodsports that no one needs.

The people who raise gamecocks can't argue that, because it's so obviously true. People come to Oklahoma to bet (illegally) on the games, and it's not like Oklahoma intentionally legalized cockfighting. In the 1960s, the state legislature passed a comprehensive ban on animal fighting, including (for example) dog fights that also go to the death. In 1963, though, the state supreme court ruled that roosters are not "animals," probably thinking "mammals," and that therefore the fight-banning laws didn't apply to cockfighting.

Ever since then, most of the state has been trying to get rid of cockfighting, but the gamecock farmers are powerful. During their campaign against the state question, they emphasized that "gamefowl" is a $100 million business each year in Oklahoma. They kind of left unsaid that there's no way gamecocks would be worth that much if they weren't in demand for gambling. It's not like these fights are highly publicized with heavy admission fees, you know.

The gamecock owners couldn't argue it was a legitimate or non-barbaric sport, so they didn't. They couldn't argue too much that it didn't lead to gambling, because that doesn't pass the laugh test. So they took a page out of Lee Atwater's playbook and attacked people who supported the measure as, and I am not making this up, "California vegetarians." They showed pictures of animal rights activists protesting at the Oklahoma City Stockyards and said that "these people" were out to stop rodeos, livestock, and all of Oklahoma's other agriculture.

This, of course, didn't pass the smell test either. Activists do sometimes protest rodeos, but rodeos aren't to the death, for corn's sake. The gamecock farmers also got a separate state question on the ballot that would have doubled the number of signatures necessary to get any animal-related question on a statewide ballot in the future. Their huge revenues had purchased them enough influence in the state legislature for two decades to keep from outlawing cockfighting or getting it sent to a vote of the people. Their plan this time was to scare everyone into leaving them alone and then make sure it was next to impossible ever to get it on the ballot again.

That's not so much how it worked. The ban on cockfighting passed 56% to 44%, and the new ballot requirements for animal subjects failed 54% to 46%. They only got that many votes by spreading the biggest pile of chicken droppings you could imagine outside of a poultry processor. In addition to the other arguments, they said the state question would ban farmers who raised chickens, a complete fabrication.

Now they're panicked, and they should be. The question is written so that as soon as the election results are certified - as soon as tomorrow, 2002.11.08 - the new penalties go into effect. The Oklahoman says, "SQ 687 states it would be a felony to instigate or encourage cockfighting; keep places, equipment or facilities for cockfighting; aid or assist in cockfighting; or own, possess, keep or train birds for cockfighting."

That's from an article describing how state embarassment Frank Shurden is already trying to eviscerate the penalties. Shurden, who has been in the pocket of the cockfighters all along and has blocked many attempts to let the voters vote on the issue, wants to change the law the voters just approved (by a bigger margin than they approve of him) so that the felonies are all misdemeanors, so that there's no jail time involved, and drop the maximum fines currently specified between $2000 and $25,000 for convictions. In other words, he wants to change it from something illegal enough not to do into something on the level of a traffic ticket that can still be profitable.

Shurden, by the way, is one of those hard-nosed wingers who has proposed for 21 straight years that Oklahoma law be changed to physically castrate sex offenders. His voting record pretty much indicates that anyone who has sex outside of the missionary position in marriage is a "sex offender," too.

In the article, Shurden says that these new cockfighting penalties would lump "hard-working Oklahomans" in with "murderers, rapists, and drug dealers." Shurden, of course, has no such concern for "hard-working Oklahoman" marijuana farmers or methamphetamine cookers. It is truly amazing how these people refuse to accept that the state has the power to outlaw something they want to do, at the same time they rant and rave that gay people or women or any other group shouldn't have "special rights." Let's see how long Shurden would avoid being a "sex offender" if heterosexual sex were illegal even in committed relationships.

The protests are completely hollow, mostly because the penalties in the new cockfighting ban are exactly the same as the penalties already in the law for dog fights. The new law merely treats gamecocks and fighting dogs equally, and that sets off the people making millions of dollars watching these birds kill each other for sport, to the point they have Shurden shilling for them to rewrite a law that just passed a statewide vote with a 12% margin despite one of the most misleading opposition campaigns not run by Jim Inhofe in state history.

But the legislature is not in session, and even if Shurden and the gamecock farmers can continue to control it, the ban goes into effect this weekend and will be there until at least January. What's more, in May, a new federal law goes into effect banning interstate transport of gamecocks. That means the two remaining states that allow it, Louisiana and New Mexico, will be isolated without fighting roosters travelling between the two states.

For years, moralists like Shurden have been saying that a minority of "moral" leaders like themselves should be able to ban consenting behavior on the part of everyone else in the state. This time, the rest of the state took the high moral ground against them, and they can't stand it. It's a shame none of them are bright enough to learn anything from this lesson.

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