If Sen. Minority Whip Gene Davis gets his way, Utah will no longer be found among the nine states in which animal cruelty is not a felony. Animal cruelty in Utah is currently a misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail for the worst cases.

The Salt Lake City Democrat's bill, Senate Bill 190, would make aggravated animal abuse a third-degree felony, punishable by up to five years in prison. The Senate Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment Committee will decide today whether it should go forward.

The bill has support from animal rights advocates angered by Mark Vincent's crass act of placing his wife's dog in a hot oven for five minutes and getting a six-month jail sentence. The punishment outraged advocates, who warn that people who abuse animals are more likely to attack spouses, children or others.

One government report lends some weight to that conclusion. The Department of Justice found that up to two-thirds of violent criminals have a past history of animal abuse. It cited one study finding that 48 percent of rapists and 30 percent of child molesters interviewed had abused animals before moving to human victims.

Under SB 190, an abuser would qualify for a felony charge if he intentionally abuses or kills an animal.

Oddly, the bill includes a list of exceptions that appear to undermine its whole point. The bill exempts farm animals, rodeo animals, wildlife, and animals used to train hunting dogs and falcons. The exemptions were put in to appease rural lawmakers who derailed the bill last year because it did not contain legal protection for their activities.

But the exemptions create a double standard. All animals are capable of experiencing fear and suffering. So what is this bill seeking to punishfi Simply the state of mind of the abuserfi Be careful, the Thought Police are not far behind.

The law applies to "non-human, vertebrate creatures," which includes lizards, birds and fish, as well as cats, dogs and horses. Thus it would be legal for a Boy Scout to let a trout suffocate in the air or to whack its head against a rock, but he would be committing a felony if he were to kill his goldfish.

Other questions arise in this regard. Some say that the process by which cattle are slaughtered for meat is not exactly merciful. Animals at slaughterhouses are known to quake with fear before getting the axe, knife or pneumatic hammer. Pigs, for example, are known as highly intelligent animals. Some who have witnessed a pig at the slaughter say that pigs clearly manifest fear of their impending doom.

Rodeo bulls are made to buck by having ropes strategically tied around their bodies to create discomfort. Animal rights groups claim the practice is cruel to the animals, even though the cowboys are hurt at least as often as the bulls.

But all these activities would be exempt from punishment.

It's true that society has held certain violent acts against animals to be permissible because they have ancient origins. They yield food for humans or give sporting pleasure. Game animals often suffer from the hunter, for example, yet hunting is condoned.

Beyond all this is the question of animal rights, which some of the more extreme organizations actually want to see enshrined in law, putting all creatures on virtual par with humans. Our guess is that most people don't buy into this craziness. People own animals; animals are seen as property and are treated as such under current tort law.

Still, animals occupy a special place in the human conscience. They're a bit different from inanimate property, like an automobile or a house. Animals do have feelings, and humans can relate to them at some level. The Justice Department report included this comparison: Animals, like people, it said, "are living creatures, have a capacity for experiencing pain and distress, can display physical signs of their pain and distress (with which a human could empathize), and may die as a result of inflicted injuries."

And yet they are not human. They do not have inalienable rights under the Constitution.

And this raises the question of degrees when it comes to crimes against animals. Is current law sufficientfi After all, a severe animal abuser faces a year in jail. Is it really a good idea to raise animal abuse to felony status, which says implicitly that harm to an animal (except for all those exceptions) falls into virtually the same class as harm to a human beingfi

Animal cruelty may be a precursor to human cruelty, just as petty shoplifting may be a precursor to bank robbery. But petty shoplifting is still a misdemeanor.

Animal cruelty is a problem, and it deserves some level of punishment. But a felonyfi Five years in prisonfi That may be a little harsh.

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What do you thinkfi

Should animal cruelty be a felonyfi Send your comments to dhpolls@heraldextra.com or call 344-2942. Please leave your name, hometown and phone number with your comments. E-mail comments should not exceed 100 words; voice-mail comments should be no longer than 30 seconds. Anonymous and unverifiable responses will not be published.

The Daily Herald will publish comments on Feb. 11.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A5.