LIBERADIO(!)

Update: Woods at Pith in the Wind reports from today’s (3/16/10) committee meeting – “The Tennessee Farm Bureau sent its minions in droves to the Legislative Plaza today as the bill came before the House Agriculture Committee for the first time….The show of force was unnecessary. Unbeknownst to the public, the bill died the moment House Speaker Kent Williams assigned it to the Agriculture Committee rather than Judiciary where it should have gone if anyone in the House leadership was really serious about passing it. The Agriculture Committee is dominated by farmers who would like to laugh Sontany right out of the room. The committee heard testimony today, but ran out of time to vote.”

The post title is a quote from Rep. Janis Sontany, who for years has been doing yeoman work to pass HB3386, which would amend the law we have now – with two different aggravated animal cruelty penalties: a felony penalty for companion animals and a misdemeanor for the same action for “livestock” – and make “the offense of animal cruelty applicable to all animals and requires that a person intentionally rather than knowingly deprive an animal of food or water in order to commit the offense.”

The bill comes before the members of the House Agriculture Committee tomorrow morning at 9 am so please call asap and ask them to support passage.

In Rep. Sontany’s own words, here is why we need this bill:

Many of you have contacted me over the past few months regarding the starving horses rescued from Cannon County and taken to the Fairgrounds here in Nashville. I promised then that I would introduce legislation that would make withholding food and/or water from any animal a felony and that I would update you on the progress and ask for your continued help. It makes no sense to me to have two different penalties – aggravated animal cruelty with a felony penalty for companion animals and a misdemeanor for the same action for “livestock”. Cruelty is cruelty regardless if you are 3 lbs. or 16 hands high. How can we continue to say that it is far worse to starve a dog than to starve a horse?

When the horses were at the Fairgrounds, I was asked by the media why the penalty for starving these horses was only a misdemeanor. My answer simply was Farm Bureau Insurance Company. This company has always demanded different laws for “livestock”.

When I first drafted this legislation, I met with Farm Bureau Insurance Company’s lobbyists to try to find some common ground. I was told that starving these horses didn’t rise to the level of aggravated animal cruelty and the current law was working just fine and they refused to negotiate.

This cruelty continues to happen. There were the 20 horses in Sumner County that were reported starved, three in Smith County – one of which was already dead and the other two found with no food or water nearly starved to death. And, then there was the incident in Bedford County where over 100 head of cattle were found starved to death.

This bill addresses more than starvation of animals. It also addresses other forms of animal cruelty. There was a woman in Sweetwater last year whose husband got mad at her and dragged her favorite horse behind his truck until the animal was almost dead. To finish him off he stabbed him with a pitch fork. When the woman contacted the district attorney in her area, she was told that they would not prosecute this action because it was a misdemeanor and wasn’t worth their time. My bill would make this action a felony as well. A misdemeanor is like getting a traffic ticket.

Jim Ridley writing for Pith in the Wind highlights this week’s Nashville Scene cover story by Christine Keyling which further describes “the tussle over a proposed bill that would make the aggravated abuse of livestock (including horses) a felony in Tennessee instead of a misdemeanor.”

Kreyling writes that the legislation fight has exposed a wide gap between animal-rights advocates — who urge an end to animal abuse in all its forms — and the powerful state Farm Bureau, which doesn’t want urban outsiders (especially the Humane Society) telling its officers and members what constitutes abuse.

Just as illuminating is the debate that has erupted in the article’s comments section online. Perhaps the most surprising is the amount of sympathy commenters show for the accused abusers who allowed more than 80 horses to starve and dwindle on their Cannon County farm.

I would argue that the online debate is more frightening than illuminating but then again, I was shocked by those who would condone the legal use of torture and demonize empathy.