The Register's Editorial

U.S. Rep. Steve King is picking a fight with the Humane Society of the United States.

On Jan. 29, the congressman from western Iowa tweeted the following: “The Humane Society of the United States, I have long referred to as the vegan lobby, is raising money again. Objective: animals = 2 people.”

This tweet triggered a flurry of responses from people accusing King of supporting dog fighting and being an animal hater. That, in turn, prompted King to emphatically state that he does not support dog fighting. Then he added one ill-advised suggestion: “You can check my record.”

That record shows:

In 2007, King was one of just 39 House members to oppose increased penalties for transporting fighting animals across state lines.

In 2012, he opposed an amendment to the farm bill that sought to establish misdemeanor penalties for attending an organized animal fight and felony penalties for bringing a minor to such a fight.

In 2012 and 2013, King introduced his own amendments to the farm bills that would have blocked states from passing laws intended to promote animal welfare and food safety. One King-sponsored amendment drew fire from other lawmakers for attempting to wipe out state laws restricting the sale of dog and cat meat.

King’s record on dog fighting became a national issue in 2012 when he wondered aloud at a town hall meeting why it was a “federal crime to watch animals fight — or to induce someone else to watch an animal fight — but it’s not a federal crime to induce somebody to watch people fighting. There’s something wrong with the priorities of people that think like that.”

► REGISTER EDITORIAL: Why won't the USDA shut down this serial animal abuser?

► REGISTER EDITORIAL: Steve King tells the Supreme Court how to do its job

Predictably, this didn’t sit well with sentient human beings who see a difference between two people voluntarily entering the ring as part of a regulated sport, and two animals being forced to do battle with each other until they’re bloodied, maimed or killed.

In attempt to quell the furor over his comments, King delivered a videotaped statement in which he sounded perfectly reasonable for all of 15 seconds before taking the exit ramp to the twilight zone:

“There has been a real effort to distort this,” he said in the video. “What I’ve said is that we need to respect humans more than we do animals. Whenever we start elevating animals up to above that of humans, we’ve crossed a moral line. For example, if there’s a sexual predator out there who has impregnated a young girl, say, a 13-year-old girl — and that happens more times in America than you and I would like to think — that sexual predator could pick that girl up off the playground at the middle school, and haul her across the state line and force her to get an abortion to eradicate the evidence of his crime, and bring her back and drop her off at the swing set, and that’s not against the law in the United States.”

Setting aside the fact that kidnapping, rape and forced abortions are, in fact, very much against the law, one has to wonder how King’s horrifying playground scenario is connected to dog fighting. His explanation: Society needs to “respect and revere human life first. Animal life, second.”

► CONNECT ON FACEBOOK: Like Des Moines Register Opinion

That’s called distraction, in which one radically reframes a debate, usually in an inflammatory manner, to avoid defending a position on the issue at hand. (Teenager to angry parent: “Why are you asking me how I wrecked the car when the world is on the brink of nuclear war? Can’t we all agree the fate of the planet is the more pressing issue?”)

In any event, one part of King’s tweet this week is correct: The Humane Society of the United States, a nonprofit charity, is raising money.