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| The HSUS/Carol Guzy |
| Removing a rooster after a 2007 raid. |
The following opinion editorial first appeared in The Greenville News on Feb. 27, 2008. It is reprinted with permission from The Greenville News and Oran P. Smith, author of the piece.
To protect state's families, we must end cockfighting
Animal cruelty isn't appropriate for a civil society
By Oran P. Smith
In the opening scene of the film "Amazing Grace" (2006), William Wilberforce orders his carriage stopped. In the next scene we see the sickly British parliamentarian, over the objections of his handlers, standing in the rain on a muddy road admonishing a young man to stop beating his fallen horse.
William Wilberforce (1759-1833) is known in the history of Western civilization mostly for his crusade against the slave trade, which after a lifetime of struggle was abolished within days of his death. But Wilberforce's political agenda was actually much broader. He had also made a commitment to reforming British "manners," a term of that age for what we today might call "cultural renewal." That cause led among other things, to the founding of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Motivated by his Christian faith, Wilberforce felt cruelty to animals was downright unbiblical.
In that spirit, I should like to call the attention of the people of the state to H. 4021 and S. 1041, commonly know as" the cockfighting bills."
Both bills, as the nickname implies, were drafted to end a barbaric practice where the animals are penned, drugged and forced to fight each other, usually until death. Aside from the Wilberforcian arguments, the Palmetto Family Council strongly supports the efforts to pass these bills because of the fact that in nearly every instance of raids by law enforcement against illegal cockfighting (including recent instances in South Carolina), illegal gambling, gun smuggling and drug trafficking were taking place—in many cases in the presence of children.
Because Palmetto Family Council's mission is to defend and strengthen families through the promotion of traditional South Carolina values, it is not hard to see why we had no choice but to become involved with H. 4021 and S. 1041.
Our neighboring states Georgia and North Carolina have already banned these practices and made the first offense a felony. That means without the passage of these bills, South Carolina will become the venue of choice for this "sport."
A step in the right direction has come from Washington, where the national government has implemented a ban on the illegal transportation of the birds across state lines for another compelling reason: family health. Fighting birds smuggled illegally from Mexico to California, according to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, were responsible for the spread of the disease Exotic Newcastle to the poultry industry in California, costing taxpayers $200 million for the cleanup. And reports indicate that bird flu, like the strain of A/H5N1 we have all read about in the recent news, could mutate further, causing additional human deaths, beyond the over 200 it is responsible for so far worldwide.
I'm glad every member of our South Carolina delegation to Washington was supportive of this successful effort—and that the transport of these birds or the even the paraphernalia is now a felony. Unfortunately, nearly two-thirds of the states (including South Carolina) have failed to completely eliminate this risk with legislation like H. 4021 and S. 1041.
The legitimate poultry and agriculture industries, veterinarian health associations and law enforcement have called for an end to this barbarism. Attorney General Henry McMaster, the Palmetto Agribusiness Council, South Carolina Poultry Federation, the South Carolina Veterinarians Association, the South Carolina Sheriff's Association, the National Chicken Council, and the National Sheriff's Association are strongly supporting the efforts to outlaw these practices. But there has been little movement for a chillingly simple reason—the cockfighters have a handful of friends in the Statehouse. Last legislative session, they pulled every parliamentary stunt they could to slow down the legislation that would have already taken care of this problem.
It is easy to see why Palmetto Family Council is acting in this case. Organized crime, drug trafficking, disease outbreaks, cleanup costs to taxpaying families, the presence of children and possibly more lost human lives are reasons too compelling to ignore.
If William Wilberforce were alive today, I am sure he would be leading the charge for H. 4021 and S. 1041 for all those reasons. But were he to testify to the South Carolina Senate on this matter as I did recently, he would probably bypass all those solid claims to simply say: animal cruelty isn't appropriate for a civil society that claims reliance on Judeo-Christian values.
We couldn't agree more.
Oran P. Smith, Ph.D. is president of the
Palmetto Family Council in Columbia, South Carolina.
