Video surfaced of Pedro Martinez and Juan Marichal at a cock fight more than 2 years ago in the Dominican Republic. Pedro and Marichal were given the high honor to release the birds into the ring. Cock fighting is legal and celebrated in the Dominican (as bullfighting is in many countries) but it is still barbaric. While I don't think there should be any punishment for Pedro, I think it's perfectly acceptable for reasonable people to be outraged by his participation at a cockfight.
And the "it's part of the culture" argument doesn't fly with me because in some Middle Eastern countries mistreatment of women is "part of the culture," does that mean we should not be outraged?
I am still a fan of Pedro's (please don't compare this to Michael Vick), but I really hope he will realize there is nothing funny about forcing two animals to fight for your enjoyment.
3 comments:
I thought I heard that Carlos Delgado was involved as well, but that may have just been rumor.
Cockfighting is absolutely beyond cruel and should be banned internationally. But since he committed no crime, I don't think the Mets or MLB should take any action other than to condemn this sort of behavior.
Boo to the Poop!! Comparing Cockfighting to the forced circumcision of women or whatever harsh middle eastern treatment of women is ignorant. And at the same time saying not to compare it to Vick is even more ridiculous after talking about mistreatment of humans. Fighting cocks is no worse then killing animals for fur, stuffing chickens in small cages and then killing them or having snakes fight each other to the death...they are fairly insignificant animals. People don't condone dog fighting b/c dogs are pets and people treat dogs like humans, some people even treat dogs better than humans. Cocks are not dogs....it is a ridiculous that this is a story. I was sitting next to the USA women's basketball team at a bull fight in Spain in 1999, is that the same thing? Vote for Pedro.
Nails, I can't believe how horribly you misinterpreted my comments.
I never compared cockfighting to the mistreatment of women. I used it as an example of deplorable behavior we don't condone even though it is "part of the culture." I could have also said that certain Asian countries eat dogs, but I want to use a more striking example to make my point about how ridiculous that argument is.
You can't compare this to Vick because Vick owned the dogs, trained the dogs, tortured and killed the dogs. Pedro just held a rooster.
The fur and food issue is trickier but I hope that animals used for those purposes are treated humanely and I get just as outraged when I hear reports to the contrary.
I agree that to Americans dogs have the highest importantance but animals should not be killed for no reason at all. I don't even kill flies or insects. If I catch one in the house I shoo it out the door.
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