Oklahoma’s Republican River Governor Kevin Stitt is veneer censure from creature rights groups — and raised eyebrows from political opponents — after posting a video shoutout to the state’s illegal cockfighting industry.

Incredibly, Stitt has made a little video inwards funding of the OK Gamefowl Commission (OGC), a aggroup that advocates for the reduction of penalties for cockfighting.

The praxis typically involves spectators placing bets on birds that then fight to the death, usually with illumination hooked razors known as “gaffs” or “slashers” attached to their talons.

Cockfighting was prohibited in Sooner State at a 2002 referendum, as ace OGC territory director, Chance Campo, knows only too well.

In Aug this year, he was charged by prosecutors with felony offenses related to illegal cockfighting after he tended to(p) a bout in James Earl Carter Jr. County that was busted by authorities.

Cheering from the Sidelines

“I wanted to have a instant to recreate you on from the sidelines,” Stitt told OGC members inwards his video, after apologizing that he could not give ear the group’s AGM inward person.

You all cognise Oklahoma’s long and storied account with gamefowl, from statehood to today,” he continued. “We demand to protect the nearly 5,000 gamefowl farmers crosswise OK and heave up our rural and municipal economies. I can’t waitress to reckon what we accomplish unitedly in the next legislative session.”

The OGC has donated to a greater extent than $70K to Sooner State lawmakers, including $2K to Stitt himself, according to The Oklahoman.

The organization boasts on its website that it managed to put to work with the legislative body to get under one's skin IV bills introduced and passed by commission cobbler's last year, although none finally became law.

‘Backwards, Embarrassing’

Former Republican Gov. Frank Keating, whose administration oversaw the 2002 ban, described cockfighting as “cruel and backward” in a financial statement this week, adding that Stitt’s behaviour was “embarrassing.”

It is an embarrassment to me that any elected prescribed seeks to turn over support the clock on this virtuously settled issue,” Keating said. “Talk of decriminalizing cockfighting is toxic to the thought of economic developing and frontwards forward motion for our outstanding state.”

Former Sooner State Attorney General John Drew Edmondson complained that Stitt was associating himself with lawlessness, which was “not a right role for any statewide elected official.”

Stitt Denial

While land residents voted to forbidding the blood sport past a slim 52% bulk at the 2002 referendum, the ban was delayed past legal challenges. It eventually came into effectuate in 2004 after the OK Supreme Margaret Court ruled 7-0 that it was constitutional. The OGC has maintained a uniform lobbying presence of all time since, The Oklahoman reports.

A representative for the Governor’s Office, Abegail Cave, denied that Stitt supports animate being cruelty. Instead, he backs “Oklahoma agriculture,” she said.

Stitt had “not seen or endorsed any legislation on this topic [of cockfighting],” she added.

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