Below, please find a statement from PETA Director Kristin Rickman in response to Gov. Kevin Stitt’s video message in support of an unsuccessful effort by a cockfighting lobbying group (“I wanted to take a moment to cheer you on from the sidelines”), which he has since attempted to retract:

While Gov. Stitt’s buddies try and fail to roll back Oklahoma’s animal protection laws, it’s clear that the majority of Oklahomans solidly reject having their state become a hideout for cockfighters. It’s called “cockfighting,” not “rooster fighting,” for a reason—and PETA reminds everyone that only cowardly men, insecure in their own manhood, get excited by strapping razor-sharp spurs to chickens and forcing them to fight to the death.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment or abuse in any other way”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, or Instagram.