Cockfighting on Web Enters Legal Arena

The law was aimed at videos that show women harming animals to appeal to sexual fetishists.

In signing the law, Clinton said it was important that the law not be construed so broadly as to "chill protected speech."

Toward that end, the law offers an exception for depictions of animal cruelty that have "serious religious, political, scientific, educational, journalistic, historical or artistic value." But the law does not spell out which depictions qualify.

Atkins's company argues that the exception for serious value applies to cockfighting. The lawsuit quotes St. Augustine of Hippo writing about a cockfight in "De Ordine": "Why do all cocks behave this way? Why do they fight for the sake of supremacy of the hens subject to them? Why did the very beauty of the fight draw us aside from this higher study for a whole, and onto the pleasures of the spectacle?"

The company's Miami lawyer, David Markus, dismisses the child pornography comparison, instead comparing cockfighting to bullfighting, hunting and fishing.

"There is no cockfighting exception to the First Amendment as there is for child pornography or hate speech or violent speech," he said. "You can watch bullfighting, hunting, fishing and any number of activities that some would call cruelty to animals on TV. Some would call those sports."

Atkins said he considers cockfighting "natural" because the birds fight on their own. Not so in dogfighting, which he said he opposes. Dogfighting is in the news now because of pro football player Michael Vick's recent indictment on charges related to his alleged operation of a dogfighting ring in Virginia.

But Pacelle scorned the appeal to history, tradition and nature, describing the allure of cockfighting in more mundane terms.

"There is a dark place in the human soul that is expressed in a small number of people in violence toward animals," Pacelle said. "There's nothing artistic about the presentation. . . . They're selling plain old cockfighting videos."