Kentucky Senate Candidate Matt Bevin: ‘I’ve Never Been to a Cockfight’

Matt Bevin attended cockfighting rally (The Courier-Journal)

U.S. Senate candidate Matt Bevin took part in a rally Saturday planned to support the legalization of cockfighting in Kentucky.

Bevin's campaign, however, described the event at the Corbin Arena in Corbin, Ky., as a "states' rights rally," and said that Bevin, who is challenging U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell in the Republican primary in May, didn't know that it had any ties to cockfighting.

"It was not a cockfighting rally, it was a states' rights rally," said Rachel Semmel, a Bevin spokeswoman.

But the event's organizer told the Corbin News Journal that the sole purpose of the rally was to gain support for legislation to legalize cockfighting in Kentucky. The newspaper reported that about 700 people attended.

"The movement is about changing the law, not breaking the law," said David Devereaux, director of the American Gamefowl Defense Network.