This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
After years of failures, the Utah Legislature is on the brink of imposing tougher penalties on cockfighting, although the House watered down the bill so it would not be a felony until the third offense.
House Majority Whip Francis Gibson, R-Mapleton, said he had voted against the cockfighting bill every time it had come to the House, but Utah is the only state in the West where it is not a felony to engage in cockfighting and having it as a misdemeanor does not deter people from doing it.
But Rep. Earl Tanner, R-West Jordan, opposed the bill in a stemwinder that included quotes from Shakespeare's "Macbeth."
Americans eat 7 billion chickens a year, and the birds are raised in pens and slaughtered and boiled.
"We eat a lot of chicken nuggets around here, guys, and the thought that what these cockfighters are doing is worthy of being a felony is a little bit absurd," Tanner said.
The roosters that fight, he said, are doing what comes naturally and, "when the end finally comes they're not being strapped upside down inside a huge factory," they go eye-to-eye with another bird.
"By animal standards, this isn't such a bad life that these fighting roosters have," he said.
Rep. LaVar Christensen, R-Draper, said he had opposed the bill in the past, but called himself a "convert," and said the bird fights should not be treated "like a sideshow on the way to KFC."
"This is one of the most reprehensible, heinous things," Christensen said. "To say that just because an animal is going to die, that's not the issue here. … We have standards, we have values. And this goes against all that."
Originally the bill would have made cockfighting a felony on the first offense, but it was watered down so it would not be a felony until the third offense.
The House passed the diluted bill by a vote of 41-33 and sent it back to the Senate to consider the changes.
Twitter: @RobertGehrke