[ OUR OPINION ]
Council lacks nerve
to ban gamecocksA timid attempt to ban roosters from urban Honolulu is languishing in the City Council following a spate of protests by breeders of gamecocks used in a cruel blood sport. If an attempt to "educate" the breeders about noise control fails -- which is likely -- a serious attempt should be made to restrict all farm animals, including chickens, to agricultural properties.
THE ISSUE
The City Council has deferred action on a proposal to ban roosters from residential neighborhoods in urban Honolulu.
The Council last year backed away from a bill that would have banned roosters from all residential properties after cockfighting enthusiasts jammed the Council chambers in protest. The Maui County Council similarly bowed to cockfighting interests a month ago. Naturally, opponents of the legislation did not admit to cockfighting, which is illegal in all but two states -- Louisiana and New Mexico -- and is intertwined with gambling, also illegal in Hawaii.
Honolulu Councilman Charles Djou thought his proposed gamecock ban would be regarded as "modest" because it was limited to the area between Pearl City and Hawaii Kai, including his own East Honolulu district. Councilman Romy Cachola complained that it would be "island-wide in its application." Actually, the proposed limitation is an insult to neighborhoods Djou seems to consider less civilized and thus more suitable for barnyard animals and roosters than his own.
Councilwoman Ann Kobayashi says the Animal CARE Foundation has agreed to educate breeders about how hoods, muzzles and other devices, including surgery, can be used to stifle the noise that is the main concern of neighbors. That effort probably will be futile, aimed at people who are more willing to furnish their prizefighters with steroids and sharp steel blades than noise deterrents.
Gamecock breeders are all too eager to be classified as agricultural when it comes to taxes. Animal rights groups are urging the government to revoke the Ohio-based United Gamefowl Breeders Association's tax-exempt status as a federally sanctioned agricultural organization. The Internal Revenue Service says such organizations include groups that cultivate land, harvest crops or aquatic resources, or raise livestock.
"You cannot separate the breeding from the fighting," says Wayne Pacelle, senior vice president of the Humane Society of the United States. "The purpose of raising the birds is to fight them. There is no legitimate agricultural activity occurring."
BACK TO TOP |
Scalia’s anger strips
high court of diversityFORMER President Ronald Reagan knew a conservative vote was a sure thing on virtually any case when he nominated Antonin Scalia to the Supreme Court. Seventeen years later, Scalia's conservatism is so irrepressible that he jeopardizes his standing on the court. He is becoming an embarrassment and hindrance to his cause.
THE ISSUE
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has ridiculed the court's recent ruling that legalized gay sex.
Scalia, 67, recused himself from taking part in a case about the "under God" reference in the Pledge of Allegiance because of his public utterances, and he has mocked his colleagues about its recent ruling that legalized gay sex.
Scalia excused himself from the Pledge case after an opponent pointed out that he had publicly criticized the idea that courts can order the removal of "under God" from it. In reference to the Pledge case, Scalia had told an audience in Virginia in January that a "new philosophy" among judges is that the Constitution "doesn't mean what Thomas Jefferson thought it meant, what the Framers thought it meant. It means what we think it ought to mean."
Last week, Scalia directed his scorn at the Supreme Court's ruling that legalized sodomy. The ruling, he said, "held to be a constitutional right what had been a criminal offense at the time of the founding and for nearly 200 years thereafter." Again, Scalia said that "most of today's experts on the Constitution" regard it as "simply an early attempt at the construction of what is called a liberal political order."
His is a stubbornly conservative view of the Constitution as unchanging, to be interpreted directly from the words of the Founding Fathers. He rejects the notion that it is a living document that evolves with the change of society. Scalia crosses the line when his insulting remarks are made to ridicule justices with whom he disagrees.
His rancor may have come from years of being left in the minority in cases involving religion, abortion, gay rights and affirmative action because of the moderately conservative swing votes of Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony M. Kennedy. Scalia's view is important to the diversity of the court, but it is jeopardized when he erupts in anger outside the courtroom.
