March 16, 2009

Tough cockfighting law justified

There is no defense for cockfighting. There's nothing noble or genuinely sporting about it. It's a blood sport, a barbaric practice steeped in cruelty and grounded in gambling.

Cockfighting is a crime in virtually every state, but in Alabama it isn't a serious crime. It's merely a misdemeanor, with a penalty that can be as little as a $25 fine. That piddling fine has about as much chance of being a deterrent as a barnyard biddy would have in the pit with a fighting cock.

As a practical matter, that comes close to tolerance of cockfighting. It's shameful, but it can be changed if the Legislature passes a measure by Rep. Cam Ward, R-Alabaster.

Ward's bill makes cockfighting a Class C felony, which carries a $10,000 fine. In addition, the legislation imposes civil penalties on the "owner, operator or manager" of a cockfighting facility. The penalties are a minimum of $1,000 per day or up to three times the gross receipts derived from the cockfighting, whichever is greater.

As the Advertiser's Markeshia Ricks reported, Alabama's weak cockfighting law invites practitioners from other states with stiffer penalties to bring their birds here. A recent raid in Randolph County resulted in 148 arrests. Of those arrested, 105 were from Georgia, where cockfighting is a felony.

Ward's bill would make Alabama a lot less attractive as a cockfighting destination.

Opponents of the bill offered ludicrous arguments against it, including the claim that it would harm the poultry industry in the state. What nonsense. Fighting cocks are carefully bred in small numbers for the sole purpose of fighting. There aren't sheds full of fighting cocks dotting the landscape. These aren't birds that would end up on someone's Sunday dinner table.

"You'll never legislate cockfighting out of existence," said D'Renda Lewis of the Alabama Gamefowl Breeders Association. "You'd do much better to try to control it."

That's ridiculous. Prostitution will never be legislated out of existence either, but should the state embrace brothels in an effort to control it?

Lewis said Ward's bill would only drive cockfighting operations further underground. Could they possibly get any further underground? Cockfighting is a shadowy activity. Its practitioners aren't exactly publicizing what they do.