GAMBLING CLOUDS ISSUES AROUND ANIMAL FIGHTING

There is a streak in human nature that often defies the niceties of civilized behavior. More than one behavioral scientist has likened the armies of the football fields and the basketball courts to the warring tribes that once settled all political, economic and social differences with swords, spears and fists.

Just as the ancient Romans took sport in watching prisoners, many of them arrested for being practicing Christians, match strength, wits and endurance with ferocious beasts, a part of modern humankind still seeks the adrenalin rush of watching an injured bull charge the red cape of a matador as man and animal engage in a formal dance to the death.

Here in Missouri, this human interest in blood sport manifests itself in many ways. Some observers would say the best part of any hockey game is when the players bloody each other. And the use of animals as combatants is still with us. Pit-bull matches and cockfights are waged fairly regularly across the state, particularly in rural areas where animals are a way of life and the long arm of the local law is either too short to interfere or actually embraces such activity.

There is a never-ending effort in the Missouri General Assembly to put a stop to such activity. Rep. Pat Dougherty of St. Louis has been trying since 1985 to get the legislature to ban cockfighting. Each effort has fallen short, either because some judge questioned the constitutional vagueness of the law or because the law itself allowed exceptions. Take the latest law to ban animal fighting. The word "animal" was changed to "mammal." Every owner of a fighting cock knows a chicken isn't a mammal.

Other legislators aren't so sure they want to put a stop to cockfighting. Rep. Phil Smith of Louisiana (the Missouri town, not the state) represents a district where folks "don't see anything wrong with that, and I try to vote the consensus of opinion in my district."

Phil Church, an Ozarks car dealer, is an advocate of cockfighting. Church observes that fighting comes as naturally to a rooster as eating or breeding.

But here is a twist. While some aficionados of cockfighting and other animal contests say they enjoy the competition on its own merits, the fact is most animal competitions are an excuse to wager on the outcome. Gambling is strictly controlled by laws already on the books, even though most Missourians currently have access to a seemingly endless array of state-sanctioned gambling opportunities.

It may not always be possible to impose culture and civility on animals whose genes lean toward attacking and maiming or killing competitors. But gambling laws are fairly easy to pass and to enforce.

The trouble is, Missouri, like so many other states, has blurred the moral issues involved. It is OK to wager and engage in games of chance -- so long as the state profits in the process. But some lawmakers would like to legislate what comes naturally to some animals. This makes it difficult for the Pat Doughertys of the world who want to have it both ways.