HolyCoast: Judge Allows Sea World to Keep Whales, PETA Wails
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Wednesday, February 08, 2012

Judge Allows Sea World to Keep Whales, PETA Wails

Orcas will have to get better lawyers:
A federal judge in San Diego on Wednesday dismissed an unprecedented lawsuit seeking to grant constitutional protection against slavery to a group of orcas that perform at SeaWorld parks, saying the 13th amendment applies only to humans.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Miller stopped the case from proceeding two days after he became the first judge in U.S. history to listen to arguments in court over the possibility of granting constitutional rights for members of an animal species.

"As 'slavery' and 'involuntary servitude' are uniquely human activities, as those terms have been historically and contemporaneously applied, there is simply no basis to construe the Thirteenth Amendment as applying to non-humans," Miller wrote in his ruling.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals filed the lawsuit in October and named five whales as plaintiffs. PETA says the wild-captured orcas are enslaved by SeaWorld because they are held in concrete tanks against their will and forced to perform in shows at its parks in San Diego and Orlando, Fla.
I wasn't sure how PETA was going to pay their lawyers in fish.

2 comments:

Nightingale said...

And how did the whales sign a contract with PETA's lawyers? And if the whales did not sign a contract, what give PETA the right to represent them or discuss their case with others.

I hope PETA has to pay the court costs of everyone involved.

Larry said...

The goal was probably to grant voting rights to pets. If my name were Ralph Ruth I'd get the vote of every dog in town.