Florida Fails To Pass Bestiality Law 56
One would think it would be easy to get lawmakers to agree that having sex with an animal should be outlawed. However, Florida lawmakers are proving just how hard it is for them to make an agreement on anything after failing to pass a proposed bestiality bill. From the article: "The inability to outlaw something so repugnant reveals how difficult it can be to get even the most carefully crafted, widely supported bill passed in the Florida Legislature. Its advocates say that in the political stew of a legislative session, the very outrageousness of the topic worked against it. Lawmakers said they did not want to be accused of wasting time addressing a rare crime when Floridians needed them to help create jobs. They also did not want to debate the icky subject in public meetings occasionally frequented by children."
Re:Why do they CARE... (Score:3, Insightful)
Do they? I would guess that most (all?) animals that are in any significant way useful (big enough, for example?...) for bestiality purposes can also pretty severely mutiliate a human, if they don't approve ("approve" at least as far as animal mind goes)
Plus many dogs seem to have an uncanny desire at the least for human legs...
Heck, my cat (when normally stroked during whatever remains of heat it has) appears, sometimes, to take on a vaguely mating position...
When you think about it, the kind of stroking that is typically performed by humans on many domesticated animals means, when a close equivalent is performed between consenting humans, a powerful turn-on. But try doing it on any random human (or an animal!) that doesn't approve...
Re:Why do they CARE... (Score:3, Insightful)
BTW, was classifying this under "animal cruelty or abuse" ever explained in a sufficiently logical way, considering how many millions of animals we slaughter, kill as pests with various neurotoxins or outright drive to extintion?
Re:Why do they CARE... (Score:3, Insightful)
There are at least a few directions I could take this argument.
Consent? You’re concerned about animals giving consent? We don’t seem to have that hang-up when we’re subjecting them to medical treatments or drugs. You don’t have to worry about getting your dog’s consent before the vet cuts his balls off, do you?
Rape? That is the forcible commission of an act of sexual intercourse upon a human without their consent. Just like killing an animal isn’t called murder, sexual intercourse with an animal without its consent (which it isn’t of a high enough mental state to properly give, according to the argument) shouldn’t be called rape. That takes you outside of the realm of loaded language such as “rape” and into a matter of whether or not you did physical harm or caused mental trauma. If the animal obviously wasn’t harmed and enjoyed it, then it wasn’t cruel or abusive.
I love playing devil’s advocate. :P
Why do they need this law? (Score:3, Insightful)
I have a question... If we already have laws that prevent animal cruelty, then why do we need a law specifically for having sex with an animal?
If you ask me, the process of butchering millions of chickens, cows, pigs, and sheep every year is far bigger deal for those animals than the perhaps ten thousand a year that are forced to have sex with a human.
I don't think that we should put people in jail for bestiality for the same reasons I don't think we should put people in jail for having anal sex or a scat fetish. The law should not be used to dictate morality, and no matter how icky you think something is, there is someone else who enjoys it.