Cockfighter Cozad missed chance to hide behind U.N. “Agenda 21”

(Beth Clifton collage)

BL Cozad garbled Bible & U.S. Constitution

            MORGANTOWN, Kentucky––If cockfighting advocate BL “Billy” Cozad had ever actually read the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit Agenda 21,  instead of blindly denouncing it,  he might have found that certain passages in it better support his arguments than anything he misquoted and misrepresented from the Bible and the U.S. Constitution during a bizarre two-hour debate on September 6,  2020 against Showing Animals Respect & Kindness founder Steve Hindi at the Morgantown Community Center in Morgantown,  Kentucky.

(The debate is posted at https://www.facebook.com/sharkonlineorg/.)

Cozad,  however,  has apparently never realized in at least a decade of public railing against Earth Summit Agenda 21 that 54 of the 55 references to animals in it appear in recommendations encouraging more productive animal agriculture.

The sole exception is a single sentence on page 229 calling for “Promotion of research on,  and validation of,  methods constituting a replacement for those using test animals (thus reducing the use of animals for testing purposes).”

Steve Hindi (left) & BL Cozad (right).
(From SHARK video)

Steve Hindi finds new way to mark Labor Day

Time was,  more than 30 years ago,  when Hindi would mark the Labor Day weekend each year by going shark fishing off Montauk,  New York.

In 1990,  however,  Hindi detoured on his way to Montauk to watch the 55th  annual Fred C. Coleman Memorial Pigeon Shoot in Hegins,  Pennsylvania.

Hindi was so appalled at the cruelty and disrespect of animal life he saw there that he gave up fishing and hunting,  became a vegan,  started Showing Animals Respect & Kindness (SHARK),  and spent his next nine Labor Day weekends making a protest pilgrimage to Hegins.

Since the Hegins pigeon shoot ended in 1999,  Hindi has dedicated his Labor Days––and much of the rest of his time and personal resources––to documenting and exposing other forms of animal abuse in the name of entertainment,  mostly other pigeon shoots and rodeos.

Clay County, Kentucky sheriffs deputies were videotaped by SHARK at a cockfight.

Cockfighting exposés

An investigative partnership with the California-based Humane Farming Association,  however,  recently turned Hindi’s attention toward cockfighting,  and led to the Morgantown debate,  in which Hindi and companion Janet Enoch faced down about 40 cockfighters,  many of them toting sidearms.

Explained SHARK spokesperson Stu Chaifetz,  “This past June,  SHARK investigators did a groundbreaking undercover operation where we filmed three major cockfighting operations,”  and documented several Kentucky sheriffs and sheriff’s deputies watching cockfights and/or allowing cockfight attendees to leave cockfights before they could be arrested.

(See Kentucky state cops let 33 cars leave alleged cockfight before investigating.)

BL Cozad Jr.  (From SHARK video)

“We welcome this opportunity”

“Our operation ignited a fierce and hateful response from the cockfighting community,”  continued Chaifetz,  “including our investigators receiving numerous death threats and racist messages.  One prominent cockfighter,  BL Cozad from Oklahoma,  challenged us to a debate.

“According to a Facebook message sent to us by Mr. Cozad,  Kentucky county sheriffs would be at the debate, apparently at the invitation of Mr. Cozad.”

Drone video of cars at alleged cockfight in Pine Knot, Kentucky.
(From SHARK video.)

No sign of law enforcement

Said Cozad,  “We’ll see if little Stevie [Hindi] has the guts to call the three sheriff’s ‘corrupt’ when they’re standing there in person.”

Hindi accepted.

Explained Chaifetz. “We welcome this opportunity to confront the sheriff whose deputies we filmed cavorting with cockfighters instead of following the law and shutting those cockfights down.”

But no one from any branch of law enforcement bothered to appear.

(Beth Clifton collage)

“If you fight roosters, you are a criminal”

The Morgantown Community Center audience,  overwhelmingly stacked against Hindi and Enoch,  mostly sat in stony silence,  while Cozad,  at times an online Holocaust denier,  issued allegations such as that prohibiting cockfighting could lead to another Holocaust.

Insisted Hindi in three-minute round after three-minute round,  sticking narrowly to just a few talking points,  “If you fight roosters, you are a criminal.  That’s a fact.”

Hindi emphasized that cockfighting is currently illegal in all 50 U.S. states,  the District of Columbia,  and in the U.S. overseas territories,  and that the current anti-cockfighting legislation has been upheld,  repeatedly,  at every level of the judiciary.

Hindi could have further pointed out that cockfighting was also illegal in every U.S. state,  the District of Columbia,  and all U.S. overseas territories for most of the 20th century,  and was illegal in much of the U.S. for most of the 19th century as well.

(Beth Clifton collage)

Cockfighting banned in Massachusetts since 1641

In fact,  cockfighting was illegal in parts of what is now the U.S. even before the U.S. existed.  The first state law that prohibited cockfighting,  adopted by Massachusetts in 1836,  built upon a tradition of jurisprudence dating back to the Massachusetts Bay Colony charter of 1641.

While some exceptions to the cockfighting bans of the past 100 years have at times been allowed in some states and other jurisdictions through acts of state legislatures and executive orders of territorial governors,  no appellate court has ever found that the same branches of government that have permitted cockfighting lack the jurisdiction to forbid it.

No court with jurisdiction to rule on constitutional matters has ever recognized a constitutionally protected right to engage in cockfighting,  or in any form of animal fighting,  under any portion of the Bill of Rights.

Seventy-two appellate courts,  however,  have upheld laws forbidding cockfighting.

(See https://www.animallaw.info/cases/topic/animal-fighting?order=field_primary_citation&sort=desc&page=1.)

BL Cozad in Big Bird bubble.
(Beth Clifton collage)

Cozad argued against banning bestiality

Hindi departed from his focal issue chiefly to challenge cockfighters,  if they truly believed Cozad’s claims the cockfighting is constitutionally protected,  to quit running and hiding from videography and law enforcement,  and instead accept arrest,  in order to fight their case through the courts.

“If you think what you do is legal,”  said Hindi time and again,  “then invite us to film your fights and let’s see what happens.  Do you have the courage of your convictions or are you cowards?”

Only occasionally did Hindi target Cozad himself,  pointing out,  for example,  that Cozad was in January 2019 criminally charged with threatening a court clerk.

Hindi also pointed out that Cozad has argued that bestiality is also a constitutionally protected right,  playing a recorded conversation in which Cozad claimed exactly that.

The most remarkable part of Cozad’s argument then was that it not only contradicted 231 years of U.S. jurisprudence,  but also contradicted the very Biblical teachings,  in the Book of Leviticus,  elaborating on a single sentence in Genesis,  that Cozad claims give humans dominion over animals and therefore permit cockfighting.

(Beth Clifton collage)

Pagan,  Nazi,  Communist?

Cozad,  for his part,  from his opening statement and repeatedly thereafter,  alleged that Hindi is a pagan,  a Nazi,  and a Communist.

For the record,  Hindi is none of the three.  As the Christian fundamentalist-raised owner of a business called Allied Tubular Rivet for the past 35 years,  named after the Allies who defeated the Nazis in World War II,  Hindi would be an unlikely suspect to be in any way associated with either pagans,  Nazis,  or Communists.

Moreover,  if there is one thing that probably 99.9% of all pagans,  Nazis,  and Communists might agree upon,  it is that paganism,  Nazism,  and Communism are inherently incompatible concepts.

Adolf Hitler did invoke Teutonic paganism in establishing his short-lived Third Reich,  1933-1945,  against the opposition of some self-professed pagans who soon found themselves in concentration camps,  but there was never a place for paganism or any religion in the doctrines of Communism.  Eventually about 30 million Russians,  Germans,  and others died over the incompatibility of Nazism and Communism.

Cockfighter trying to resuscitate gamecock.  (From SHARK video)

Cozad contends cockfighting is “method of harvest”

Undeterred,  Cozad simultaneously argued that cockfighting is a religious freedom,  contrary to jurisprudence,  and that the exercise of paganism,  which has been protected by the U.S. Constitution ever since the Constitution was written,  is not.

Claimed Cozad,  as he has repeatedly in GameFowl News and other cockfighting media,  “Instead of defending and protecting the freedoms of U.S. citizens,  our legislators vie for the support of well-funded special interests and champion their causes even at the expense of the inalienable rights,  freedoms,  culture,  heritage,  animal agriculture industries,  and adverse effects to U.S. citizens lives these laws have.”

Alleging that cockfighting is a form of animal agriculture,  though hardly anyone eats gamefowl,  Cozad contended that “The method of harvest of gamecocks has been allowing them to fight another gamecock for more than 3,000 years.”

(Beth Clifton collage)

Links cockfighters to Black Lives Matter

“Understand that animal welfare laws are the same thing that Adolf Hitler used in the early days of Nazi Germany,”  Cozad continued,  apparently unaware or just plain not caring that most of the 32 “animal protection laws” adopted by Nazi Germany were thinly disguised cover for the oppression of Jews,  gypsies,  and other minorities.  The first two of those laws banned kosher slaughter;  the last one barred Jews from keeping pets.

(See Animals In The Third Reich:   Pets,  Scapegoats,  and the Holocaust.)

“Every raid by government agents creates situations where the agents may hurt, cripple and even kill people no matter what the issue is that the law is meant to address,”  Cozad said,  linking defense of cockfighting to Black Lives Matter.

(Beth Clifton collage)

“Paganism & animal worship”

“What you advocate,”  Cozad accused Hindi,  “is that these government agents should make raids,  rip families apart and create these situations where gamecock farmers may be killed because your personal opinion of chickens outweighs the right of these farmers to harvest their livestock,  earn a living and provide for their families.

“God gave man dominion over the earth,  animals,  fish and fowl,”  Cozad asserted.  “Our constitution is written to ensure each man is equal in these God given rights.  To advocate as you do that the God-given rights of the gamecock farmer can be taken away over your personal desire to protect chickens amounts to paganism and animal worship,  as you have personally chosen to put animals (chickens) above the lives of gamecock farmers.”

This collage has nothing to do with Agenda 21. Neither did Cozad’s claims.
(Beth Clifton collage)

“U.N. Agenda 21,  the pagan’s bible”

Time and again Cozad returned to his claim that opposition to cockfighting is somehow rooted in “U.N. Agenda 21,  the pagan’s bible.  Our common fight,”  Cozad said of himself and fellow cockers,  “is actually Biblical in nature,  our God-given rights versus the Satanic animal worshiping paganism in U.N. Agenda 21.  The U.N. Agenda 21 Charter is their earth and animal worshiping pagan bible.”

Earth Summit Agenda 21 was in truth a 351-page discussion document,  which set ecological goals for the year 2021 in connection with agriculture,  economic development,  and forestry.

As 2021 is now only months away,  Earth Summit Agenda 21 is now obsolete and due for updating.

Never a charter of anything,  nor a treaty,  nor in any way purporting to make law,  Earth Summit Agenda 21 was ratified in principle as a set of longterm recommendations by 178 governments at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil,  from June 3 to June 14, 1992.

(Beth Clifton collage)

Nothing Cozad said was in “Agenda 21” really is

Nowhere is there any mention in Earth Summit Agenda 21 of “animal rights,”  of the word or concept “humane,”  nor of any particular form of religion or government.

There is no mention in Earth Summit Agenda 21 of pagans or paganism,  no mention of Nazis,  no mention of Communists,  and not even one mention of birds,  nor of any animal species or order,  let alone anything about gamefowl or gamecocks.

But B.L. Cozad,  bluntly put,  did not do his homework in preparation for the debate,  even though Earth Summit Agenda 21 is easily downloadable and text-searchable at https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/outcomedocuments/agenda21.

Claimed Cozad,  “The United Nations Agenda 21 plan is meant to destroy the Constitution of the United States,”  which it never references in any manner,   “bringing us one step closer to the very real,  very current New World Order,”  also never mentioned in Earth Summit Agenda 21,  “which many say is a Satanist-connected cult.”

Satan,  by the way,  is also never mentioned in Earth Summit Agenda 21.

(Beth Clifton collage)

Recommendations for boosting animal agriculture productivity

So what does Earth Summit Agenda 21 actually recommend?

The first mention of animals anywhere in the whole 351 pages,  on page 95,  calls for “Increasing the protection of forests from pollutants,  fire,  pests and diseases and other human-made interferences”  including “the uncontrolled introduction of exotic plant and animal species.”

Introductions of exotic plant and animal species are again mentioned in passing on page 149.

After the initial mention of animals,  the word “animal” comes up several times in contexts such as discussing how deforestation and soil erosion lower “potential for human and animal carrying capacity,”  specifically in connection with encouraging more efficient agriculture.

“Pests affecting animal health also cause heavy losses and in many areas prevent livestock development,”  Earth Summit Agenda 21 notes on page 141.

Page 142 recommends for governments “to improve and implement plant protection and animal health services,”  so as to obtain better yields from plant and animal husbandry.

What Florida looked like when iguanas were most abundant, & may look like again by 2100, at the current pace of global warming.  (Beth Clifton collage)

Two sentences on climate change

Several Earth Summit Agenda 21 passages call for research to “update existing inventories of natural resources,  such as energy,  water,  soil,  minerals,  [and]  plant and animal access to food,  as well as other resources, such as housing, employment,  health, education  and demographic distribution in time and space.”

There is a single sentence,  partially repeated once,  recommending “Evaluation of the effects of ultraviolet radiation on plants and animals caused by the depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer.”

This,  and 33 mentions of effects of climate change other than associated with animals,  has caused considerable consternation on the part of fossil fuel industry advocates over the past two decades,  during which the referenced climatic effects,  usually referenced as global warming,  have become ever more self-evident to just about everyone.

(Beth Clifton collage)

Making better use of manure for fertilizer

Pages 154 through 156 encourage use of biotechnology “To increase to the optimum possible extent the yield of major crops, livestock, and aquaculture species.”

Pages 161,  206,  217,  and 220 mention animals in the context of developing “processes to recover energy and provide renewable energy sources, animal feed and raw materials from recycling organic waste and biomass,”  preventing manure runoff from harming fisheries,  and preventing “contamination of water sources with animal excrement in order to prevent the spread of diseases.”

The last recommendation of Earth Summit Agenda 21 relevant to animals,  on page 299,  calls for “research on mechanization that would optimize human labor and animal power and hand-held and animal-drawn equipment that can be easily operated and maintained,”  taking into account “farmers’ available resources and the role of animals in farming households and the ecology.”

In other words,  if some farmers in the developing world have access only to animal power and the work they can do with their own muscles,  they should at least have plows and carts that turn the soil and draw loads efficiently.

Steve Hindi talks to cockfighters about drugs.  (From SHARK video)

Missed his chance

So what could Cozad have used from Earth Summit Agenda 21?

Pages 120,  125,  and 139 include language calling for governments to “Build an inventory of different forms of soils,  forests,  water use,  and crop,  plant and animal genetic resources,  giving priority to those under threat of extinction.

“Some local animal breeds,”  says Earth Summit Agenda 21,  “in addition to their socio-cultural value,  have unique attributes for adaptation,  disease resistance and specific uses and should be preserved.”

Cozad might have cited those passages in defense of preserving rare gamecock breeds.

Beth & Merritt Clifton

But Cozad didn’t,  because his claims about Earth Summit Agenda 21 were as ill-informed as everything else he said.

Now he cannot make use of what Earth Summit Agenda 21 actually says,  except to openly align himself with what he has already denounced as “pagan” and “Satanic.”

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