"Aren't there more important things for them to worry about?"

That refrain pops up whenever lawmakers consider something people find trivial, like the plight of animals. Whether it's factory farming or free-range eggs or, most recently, treatment of elephants at the circus, people say that maybe our legislators ought to concentrate on something more pressing.

To answer the question, "Yes." There's always something more important, depending on who you ask. Few would argue that, for example, straightening out the state's foster care system is more important than taking a few cents off the gas tax. And there is still a war on.

But that doesn't mean everyone stops what they're doing until the most important issues, as measured by popular vote, are "solved," one by one. We pick our spots and try to do what's right when we can. And if that means taking time to ensure better treatment for elephants, we should do it.

That we treat animals abominably in this country is beyond question. Anyone with a hint of what goes on in a factory farm knows that. Those operations are exactly what they're called — factories. And the parts and pieces that go into making the final products are treated with as much care as you would see at any other factory.

The situation is allowed to continue for a simple reason — people would rather not know. Our food comes packaged at the grocery store or between a bun at a restaurant, and it's much easier to look away than to imagine the

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assembly-line process that turns a living thing into your dinner. But it's there for anyone who wants to look. And if you eat meat, there's basically no alternative. Organic farming is a good start, but falls far short of providing a cruelty-free life for the animals. Locally grown and processed food is just about impossible to come by on a wide scale; you can buy corn and carrots from a farmers market, but try making every meal for a week with food you can trace from the ground to your dinner plate. It can't be done.

The treatment of factory farmed animals is by now well-known — fattened up on unnatural foods and pumped full of antibiotics, most of them live short, agonizing lives. Chickens sit in cages so small they can't turn around; cows wallow in their own filth, far from anything that could be considered a natural habitat; and a pig is lucky to see the sun once in its miserable life span.

This goes on every day, and yet individual stories of animal cruelty inspire uncommon outrage. People are stunned to see dogs treated badly, and any story of abandoned pets garners offers by the dozens from readers asking to take them in.

So it isn't that people don't care. Pigs and chickens aren't dogs and cats, but no one (or hardly anyone) takes pleasure in knowingly allowing another living thing to suffer. People look away because they aren't offered a choice. There's almost no practical way to boycott factory farmed animals and still eat. Vegetarianism isn't an option for everyone, and it's pretty rare to see a backyard slaughterhouse for cows you raised yourself.

But, occasionally, we are offered a choice on how we treat animals, which leads back to elephants. These animals, too, aren't dogs and cats; they are an order of magnitude smarter and more highly advanced. They live as families, protect their young and mourn their dead. Elephants in the wild develop a complicated social structure based on mutual support and competition. They are highly intelligent animals.

An ongoing controversy in the state Legislature concerns the circus and the use of what are known as bullhooks to keep the show's elephants in order. A proposed ban on the sharp steel tools has led officials with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus to warn that, if it passes, the show would boycott the state, including P.T. Barnum's adopted hometown of Bridgeport.

Supporters of the ban say use of the implement constitutes cruelty because it tears at and scars the animals' skin. Opponents (mainly the circus) say it's a time-tested tactic that does no harm.

And it's being touted as a battle for the circus itself. If Connecticut bans bullhooks, the show will skip the state, and our children will be denied the opportunity to witness these amazing creatures firsthand.

To which legislators should answer: Go ahead. Elephants, and zebras and lions and all the rest, have no business in traveling showcases, herded from city to city for our amusement. If an organization that treats animals that way doesn't want to come here, all the better.

To point out that one circus treats animals better than another or to say they would face cruelty elsewhere changes nothing. Familial separation, confinement and forced performances are not justifiable.

It can be argued that people waste their time worrying about whether a chicken in Arkansas is getting a raw deal, or whether cows really would be happier out in a meadow somewhere. We can't know for sure because we can't ask them, but we can do what seems right — wanton cruelty should be stopped wherever it is. Someday, factory farming will be on our national radar screen, and action against it will follow.

As for the circus, it should be about clowns and jugglers on stilts and human cannonballs and all the other willing participants that make a life out of entertaining people. But keep the animals out of it.

Hugh Bailey is assistant editorial page editor at the Connecticut Post. You can reach him at 203-330-6233 or via e-mail at hbailey@ctpost.com