Looks as if the Supreme Court has temporarily lost it's mind. On April 20th they struck down a law that prohibited videos that included cruelty of animals stating freedom of speech and overbroad in scope. The vote was 8-1.
Justice Alito the sole dissenting judge on the Supreme court bench in this case described a crush video that was submitted to the Court as evidence as follows:"(A) kitten, secured to the ground, watches and shrieks in pain as a woman thrusts her high-heeled shoe (I won't print the rest but you can read it here).
This allowed the filming and distributing of crush videos which is extreme cruelty to animals. (Definition- the term `animal crush video’ means any photograph, motion-picture film, video or digital recording, or electronic image that depicts actual conduct in which 1 or more living non-human mammals, birds, reptiles, or amphibians is intentionally crushed, burned, drowned, suffocated, impaled, or otherwise subjected to serious bodily injury.)
Senators introduced a bill to specifically ban crush videos. The Animal Crush Video Prohibition Act would make it illegal for creation, sale and marketing of these specific kinds of videos.
"Our legislation would ban animal crush videos that fit squarely within the obscenity doctrine -- a well-established exception to the First Amendment," said Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Arizona, a co-sponsor. "It also takes the important step of banning non-commercial distribution of animal crush videos, which is necessary given the nature of the Internet and the propagation of file-sharing and peer-to-peer networks that exist today."
Sens. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, and our own local Senator Richard Burr, R-North Carolina, also helped draft the legislation.
The Animal Rescue Site has a petition they would like everyone to sign. Please sign it to be sure this new law gets passed before more animals are needlessly killed for someone's "pleasure".
For more detailed info see:
Stop Crush
Sign Petition
"The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?" — Jeremy Bentham
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