AR-News: (LA) Lafayette Advertiser Calls for Anti Cockfight Bill to Be Reheard in Louisiana

[Political Animal]

Lafayette Daily Advertiser
 

House can still save bill to bring end to cockfighting
in state 

May 17, 2004

 Issue: Agriculture Committee kills legislation to
make the sport illegal.
We Suggest: It should be considered by the full House.

Animal protection groups are hoping that the effort to
end cockfighting in Louisiana may be revived. The
House Agriculture Committee killed the bill to ban the
blood sport by a 9-5 vote, leaving Louisiana as one of
only two states in which it is allowed. Now,
supporters of the bill are calling for the full House
to take it up. 

It should never, says the Humane Society of the United
States, have gone to the Agriculture Committee. In the
past, according to the society, anti-cruelty
legislation, including measures related to dog
fighting and hog-dog fighting, has been assigned to
the Committee on Administration of Criminal Justice. 

We support the call for a hearing by the full house.
Cockfighting contributes to a barbaric image for the
state. It is opposed by 82 percent of Louisiana’s
voters. A Daily Advertiser reader who attended a
cockfight with her husband wrote “the pitiful
roosters, who had lived their entire lives tethered,
never knowing the freedom of flight, were tossed into
a pit and goaded into fighting until one bled to
death. Those who call this entertainment must be
degenerates.”

It is embarrassing to be the only state other than New
Mexico that continues to permit the cruel spot. The
House can override the Agriculture Committee. It
should revisit the issue, and heed the will of the
people. 

©The Lafayette Daily Advertiser




	
		
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