Keep sales of animal cruelty images illegal

Pam Price, Henderson

Tuesday, April 28, 2009 | 2:04 a.m.

I agree with Saturday’s Las Vegas Sun editorial “Cruelty and free speech,” which supports the 1999 federal law prohibiting the sale of images of actual animal abuse (such as staged fights, torture, and inhumane killing). This law has been challenged and will be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The challenge stems from a federal appeals court decision that the sale of animal-cruelty images is protected under the First Amendment, even though the acts are a crime. The court wrote that under the 1999 law, for-profit videos of bullfighting in Spain could be determined illegal.

Bullfighting disgusts me, but I see a distinction between a legal, foreign custom (that ends with poor people eating the meat) and the enjoyment of seeing animals tortured.

An example of the glut of “protected” violent images that people cannot escape was a sign at the Tampa, Fla., tax-day “tea party.” It was a full-color cartoon of President Barack Obama, grabbing Uncle Sam from behind and slashing his throat. This vicious, flagrant lie of a cartoon disturbs me less than the pathetic real-life videos of human-instigated animal mutilation.

I hope that the Supreme Court members choose not to reward the proliferation of these savage, illegal acts.