Take a stand for animal protection and oppose Oklahoma’s pro-cockfighting bill!

With the obvious cruelty associated with cockfighting, it’s hard to believe that Oklahoma Rep. Justin Humphrey would want to turn back the clock and essentially legalize cockfighting in the Sooner State.

But that’s exactly what he’s doing.  His bill, House Bill 3283, reduces penalties to make cockfighting violations a cost of doing business.  And he legalizes a range of activities associated with cockfighting, such as raising and training cockfighting roosters – which are now felony offenses under Oklahoma law.

Let’s be clear: illegal trafficking of fighting animals is like the drug trade.  It is illegal and it is a big, underground business.  Oklahoma is the cockfighting capital of the United States, according to the Center for a Humane Economy. Tens of thousands of fighting animals are exported from Oklahoma to fighting rings across the world while the gruesome practice fuels a thriving criminal underworld.

While Humphrey argues that it’s “just like raising beef or pork,” it’s obvious that this bill is nothing but a get-out-of-jail-free card for the organized criminals who run cockfighting rings in his district.

Add your name to oppose Justin Humphrey’s pro-cockfighting bill!

House bill 3283 must be defeated. Cockfighting is a barbaric practice, where organizers and handlers attach knives or curved ice picks to the birds’ legs, and then gamble on the knife fight that unfolds.

Former Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson has condemned the bill, saying “this pro-cockfighting bill is an affront to every law-abiding Oklahoman and an embarrassment to our state. Cockfighting is a barbaric practice criminalized on every inch of soil by state and federal laws. The criminals who stage and promote knife fights between animals deserve handcuffs and jail time, not defensive maneuvers by lawmakers.”

Oklahoma voters outlawed cockfighting by a ballot measure in 2002.  Now, two decades later, Rep. Humphrey wants to turn back the clock and allow spectacles of cruelty to thrive in Oklahoma.  Let’s not let him succeed.

Sign your name to stand for decency and animal protection and oppose Oklahoma’s pro-cockfighting bill!