This week, the Oklahoma Supreme Court issued, for a second time, a
unanimous ruling allowing an initiative to ban cockfighting to go before
its citizens on the November 2002 ballot. The ruling comes in response
to cockfighters' challenges to a ruling last year in which the Oklahoma
Supreme Court issued an opinion that a citizen-generated,
anti-cockfighting petition had enough valid signatures to be submitted
to a vote of the people.
If the ballot initiative is approved by voters
in November 2002, cockfighting and related activities will become a
felony in Oklahoma, punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $25,000
fine. Currently Oklahoma remains one of only three states that have yet
to ban the cruel blood "sport" of cockfighting.
In neighboring Arkansas,
activists have just submitted more than 89,000 signatures of registered
voters to put a measure on the state's November 2002 ballot making
egregious acts of animal cruelty a felony offense, including a ban on
cockfighting. Because only 57,000 valid signatures are needed to qualify
for the ballot, this all but guarantees that citizens will vote on the
measure in November 2002. Congratulations to Humane Arkansas and The
Fund's members in Arkansas who participated in this successful petition
drive.
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