NM AG's Office Rules On Cockfighting Question

[Pat Wolff]

Saturday, May 17, 2003

AG: Treaty Doesn’t Address Cockfighting

Associated Press


The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo doesn’t address
cockfighting, and it’s not a right protected by the
treaty, the attorney general’s office says.

The office reached that conclusion in an advisory
letter to Rep. Ron Godbey, R-Cedar Crest.

Proponents argued earlier this year during debate on
an unsuccessful effort to ban cockfighting that it was
protected under the treaty that ended the
Mexican-American War. Godbey then asked the attorney
general’s office for an opinion.

The treaty, which applies to New Mexico and parts of
California and Texas, does not mention cockfighting,
assistant attorney general Albert Lama said in a
letter last month to Godbey.

Lama wrote that while some could argue the treaty
preserved certain rights of Mexican citizens, if the
right to cockfighting existed in 1848 and was passed
down to U.S. residents, that right “would be subject
to neutral laws of general applicability,” Lama wrote.

A cockfighting ban would appear to be such a law, he
said.

No treaty-based challenges to cockfighting have been
made, Lama said.

Lama cited a 1990 U.S. Supreme Court case in also
addressing the question of whether cockfighting is a
religious activity protected under treaty provisions
covering religious freedom. The Supreme Court ruling
reaffirmed that religious practices have to conform
with laws of general applicability, he said.

“Even if cockfighting is a legitimate religious
practice, it can constitutionally be banned or
otherwise burdened by a neutral law of general
applicability,” Lama wrote.

New Mexico and Louisiana are the only two states that
permit cockfighting.

 
 

 


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