OKLAHOMA CITY — Animal-rights activism is colliding head-on with rural tradition in Oklahoma, where voters will decide Nov. 5 whether to ban cockfighting in one of the last three states to allow the bloody spectacle.
Supporters of the proposed ban say cockfighting is inhumane and gives the state a bad name. Opponents say the sport, also legal in Louisiana and New Mexico, is a livelihood for people who raise the birds and is no crueler than the way chickens are raised and slaughtered.
Cockfighting became legal in Oklahoma in 1963, when the state Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that a fowl is not an animal and thus is exempt from state law against animal fighting.
Specially bred gamecocks are fitted with razor-sharp spurs or knives. They are placed in dirt pits and often fight to the death. Illegal gambling is often the big draw.
"It's barbaric — abject cruelty to animals," said Janet Halliburton, who led the petition drive to put the measure on the ballot. "It makes us look like a bunch of knuckle-dragging animal abusers."
Oklahoma is one of three states with animal-welfare initiatives placed on the Nov. 5 ballot through citizen petition drives.
• In Florida, voters will consider a proposed amendment that would make the state the first to outlaw the practice of confining pregnant pigs in small metal cages.
• In Arkansas, voters will decide whether to make the state the 38th with felony penalties for extreme acts of animal cruelty.
Most Oklahomans never have seen a cockfight, and polls show the ban is likely to pass by a wide margin. Still, two of three gubernatorial candidates, Democratic state Sen. Brad Henry and independent Gary Richardson, oppose the ban. Republican Steve Largent favors it.
Outgoing Gov. Frank Keating has endorsed the measure, saying, "It is simply embarrassing to Oklahoma to be seen as one of only a tiny handful of locations outside of the Third World where this activity is legal."
However, a former governor, David Walters, opposes the measure, saying it would halt a source of income for some impoverished rural communities.
"Some of these people are dead-dog poor, and I have a hard time telling them we're going to take your livelihood away," he said.
James Tally, president of the Oklahoma Game Fowl Breeders Association, said cockfighters are mischaracterized as animal abusers.
"It's hard for people to understand that a less cruel way of life for these roosters is the way we raise them and take care of them," said Tally, a railroad worker from Kingston.
Nancy Savage, 54, a former teacher who grew up going to cockfights, now edits an industry newsletter, The Cock 'N Bull. Gamecocks, she said, are well-fed, sheltered and often live to be 4 or 5 years old, "compared to those in the poultry houses, who are 5 or 6 months old when they hit the chopping block."
She said cockfighters "are some of the finest people I've ever met" and include doctors, lawyers, preachers, postmasters and firefighters.
The measure on the Oklahoma ballot would make it a felony to hold cockfights, keep equipment or facilities for cockfighting or possess birds for cockfighting. The penalty would be up to 10 years in prison.
Attempts to outlaw cockfighting in New Mexico and Louisiana have failed.
AP - Naconna Bennett, 16, holds a sharp blade that is one of the cockfighting tools he owns in McAlester, Okla. Specially bred gamecocks are fitted with the blades, then placed in dirt pits to fight, often to the death. Oklahoma voters will decide Nov. 5 whether to ban the bloody sport.
