This spring, the Supreme Court struck down a ban on video depictions of dog-fighting and violence against animals. The original law had been enacted to stop the sale of "crush" videos.
Crush videos appeal to a certain sexual fetish by depicting the torture of animals -- cats, dogs, monkeys, mice and hamsters, according to Congress -- or showing them being crushed to death by women wearing stiletto heels or with their bare feet.
Earlier this week, a lobbyist for the NC Pork Council, Angie Whitener, explained that the group's opposition to a bill regulating "puppy mills" was "solely based on the proponent of the bill," the Humane Society of the United States. As a followup to this candid and revealing statement, Raleigh's News & Observer has posed a rather shrewd question to Ms. Whitener:
Does the Pork Council also oppose renewed efforts by the Humane Society to ban "crush" videos?
The N&O's editorial is a brilliant smackdown of the arrogant and unconscionable efforts of the Pork Council, the NRA, and other groups to kill a bill that had nothing to do with hogs, guns, or hunting -- instead, S.B. 460 was designed to permit inspection of and set standards of care for the unregulated "puppy mill" industry in North Carolina. You can find a detailed account of the problems associated with these Dog Farms and the demise of S.B. 460 here.
Ms. Whitener's answer to the question that North Carolinians have collectively asked for the past week -- what does a bill regulating puppy mills have to do with the Pork Council? -- has pulled back the curtain on exactly how ridiculous things can get down at the General Assembly. As the N&O's editorial board wrote:
Rarely does light shine on the dark side of legislative lobbying quite so brightly. Thanks to a candid N.C. Pork Council lobbyist, The N&O's Leah Friedman was able to report that the organization had helped kill a legislative bill that would regulate "puppy mills" because - and solely because - the bill was backed by the Humane Society of the United States.
The editorial goes on to lampoon Ms. Whitener's slippery-slope, guilt by association, conspiracy theory of how a bill protecting dogs will lead to tofu for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and, in closing, asks two very important questions. First:
what's so outlandish about an organization called the Humane Society pushing for more humane conditions? Improving the lot of animals raised for meat on factory farms seems like a good idea, not a bad one . . . .
And second:
[H]ere's a thought-exercise for the Pork Council.
As it happens, the Humane Society of the U.S. is urging Congress to try again (after an adverse Supreme Court ruling) with legislation that would ban those hideous "crush videos," for which dogs or other small animals are tortured and killed.
Opposed to that bill too?
Bravo, News & Observer, Bravo.