Initiative would ban cockfighting

PHOENIX - No one ever said it was the sport of kings.

Two roosters stand beak-to-beak in a fighting pit, puffing out their feathers. Suddenly, they fly at each other, stabbing with their beaks and the knives lashed to their legs, crashing and slashing until one dies. Men crouch over the knee-high birds, rooting them on.

Even seasoned cockfighters admit their pastime may seem bizarre and cruel to outsiders. But it's tradition, they say.

"As long as there's two men on the face of the Earth, they're going to find something to fight," says Belton Hodges, a 78-year-old cockfighter who wears a rooster belt buckle and fills his Phoenix home with cock paintings, trophies and fight knives.

But Hodges' way of life may be doomed. An initiative on the Nov. 3 ballot, which one poll shows winning by a dramatic margin, would make cockfighting a felony punishable by two years in prison and a $150,000 fine. Owning or training a fighting cock would be illegal. Watching a cockfight would be a misdemeanor worth six months in jail and a $2,500 fine.

Animal rights groups have tried to get cockfighting banned in Arizona for decades, watching in frustration as legislators shot down more than 20 anti-cockfighting bills since the 1950s. This year they took the vote to the public.

The sport is legal in four other states - Louisiana, Missouri, New Mexico and Oklahoma.

A measure on Missouri's ballot next month seeks to make animal fighting a felony and includes a specific ban on cockfighting and bear wrestling. Opponents say the measure could be interpreted to forbid everything from rodeos to hunting, but proponents say it's obvious the ban doesn't apply to those events.

"The statute is about animal fighting and animals hurting each other - an organized animal fight," said Barbara Gray, campaign manager for Missourians Against Cockfighting in St. Louis.

Arizona cockfighters say the initiative attacks a rural way of life, their personal freedom, their tradition.

A poll done last month by the Arizona Chamber of Commerce showed 87% of voters statewide backed the measure. Support was strongest in rural counties at 94%, compared with 85% in greater Phoenix and 82% in greater Tucson, defying the contention of cockfighters that the measure is backed mostly by urban professionals.

During the November-to-June fight season, the birds battle in big cities and small towns alike, in special arenas run by cockfighting clubs and in backyard clearings. Retirees, veterans and Mexican immigrants are among the biggest fans, cockfighters say.

"It's the regular old working men against these very well-educated, well-heeled people who want a utopian society," says Eileen Curran, who takes her children to their father's fights and helps raise birds on the family's farm in Phoenix.

James Massey of Tucson, president of Citizens Against Cockfighting, says his opponents talk about freedom and tradition because they can't defend cockfighting's cruelty.

"They know most people find cockfighting pretty disgusting," he said.

Massey says the birds don't naturally fight and are often given drugs to make them aggressive. He says the fights teach children to relish violence.

Cockfighters say the birds are naturally antagonistic. While the rules require one bird to die, they say, no one forces them to fight. They admit gambling - sometimes for tens of thousands of dollars - but say the fights mean more.

To Curran, her husband's cockfights are like weekly picnics or baseball games.

"I go with him because that is our time," she says. "He doesn't know how to relax. If we go with him, we have a family outing. If this ban passes, that means we can't do anything as a family anymore. Because I can't risk my kids losing two parents to jail."

By The Associated Press

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