AR-News: (LA) Shreveport Times Slams Cockfighters

[Political Animal]

http://shreveporttimes.com/html/6CC5E279-CCB1-4543-86AD-02A0701D20CD.shtml

 

 

Cockfighting's day has passed
Burden of ending blood sport falls on state
legislators.
Posted on February 6, 2004 

Blood sport resumes in Caddo Parish after a state
district judge ruled that the local prohibition
against cockfighting runs counter to state law. 

"Sportsmen" are once again free to watch drugged-up
birds with metal blades strapped to their legs slice
and dice each other for both the amusement and
enrichment of the spectators. 

With Caddo District Judge Charles Scott's ruling that
parish law can't supersede state law - even one that
sanctions animal cruelty - the ball lands clearly in
the hands of Louisiana legislators. 

Louisiana is one of two states - New Mexico is the
other - that allows cockfighting. Because of that and
Caddo's close proximity to the state lines of Arkansas
and Texas, cockfighting has significant drawing power.
But unlike importing Texans to feed local casinos,
this activity leaves not a revenue stream but rivulets
of blood. 

In fact, at the very least the state should crackdown
on the illegal gambling that is the backbone of
cockfighting. While the state reaps ample dollars from
the varied gambling options that are legally
sanctioned, money changing hands around the cockpit
goes unreported and often crosses the state lines back
into Texas and Arkansas. 

Couple that with the reprehensible notion that society
derives value from putting poultry into an arena to
savage each other, purely for entertainment and
wagering, and it is baffling why such carnage is
legal. 

Interestingly, cockfighting has a potent lobby.
Because of that legislators in many districts will
need to stiffen their spines, look those game fowl
breeders in the eye and just say no. Louisiana is not
some anachronistic backwater, and cockfighting is not
some charming cultural idiosyncrasy. Cruelty to either
man or beast is just plain wrong.

 


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