Words have meaning. Amendment 13 to the Florida Constitution has “hidden words.” These words are hidden from voters. These hidden words will not be on your ballot, but if Amendment 13 passes they will go into the Constitution.
A circuit court judge actually called Amendment 13 an “outright trickeration” and an attempt to “hide the ball” from voters.
The actual amendment that would go in the Constitution contains the words: “The humane treatment of animals is a fundamental value of the people of the State of Florida.”
Nowhere in the amendment is “humane treatment of animals” defined. Therefore, it is left entirely up to radical animal rights organizations and their sympathizers to define those words. That is what they intend.
If this amendment were really about greyhound racing or wagering on greyhound races, why did animal rights radicals carefully craft and insert hidden language in the amendment?
If, as some have claimed, those words mean nothing substantive, why are they there?
Do they really expect intelligent people to believe they want to insert words that mean nothing in the Constitution?
Make no mistake, these extremists will use those “hidden words” to ban common, traditional activities involving farm animals, pets, working dogs, cattle dogs, medical support animals and wildlife.
That’s why extremist animal rights leaders like Marty Irby, the executive director at Animal Wellness Action in Washington, D.C., are trying to divert attention away from the hidden words and make NRA the issue.
Marty Irby even mounted a blatant political attack on the NRA in a desperate attempt to focus attention away from the hidden agenda of Amendment 13. (October 17, 2018, in TC Palm)
Animal rights leaders are in a panic. Their attempt to use hidden words to establish a legal foothold in the Florida Constitution that they can use to bring lawsuits to ban legitimate activities, like hunting, fishing and farming activities has been exposed.
They don’t want people to realize that greyhound racing is camouflage designed to help hide their complete agenda.
In fact, the list of some of the activities animal extremist organizations find objectionable is huge and includes hunting, fishing, farming, animal husbandry, marine parks and more. That’s what this is really about. Some groups even claim animals shouldn’t be owned as pets because it’s inhumane.
If you own a pet, drink milk, eat meat, eat fish, use animals to work on your farm, hunt, fish, train dogs, raise cattle, horses or other animals, or take your children or grandchildren to petting zoos to learn about animals, then you should be alarmed. Amendment 13 could be used to take all of that away from you. Vote NO on Amendment 13. The devil is in the hidden details.
Marion P. Hammer is past president of the National Rifle Association and executive director of Unified Sportsmen of Florida.
