Please provide a link that shows privacy or bestiality addressed in the Constitution.

The right to privacy has been constructed by the USSC in the cases of Griswold v. Conneticutt, Roe v Wade and now Lawrence Et Al v Texas. I personally disagree with the courts construction of this privacy right. However, as the supreme law of the land stands today I do not see how laws prohibiting beastiality can be consistent with the court's decision in Lawrence Et Al v Texas.

Where in the Constitution is the federal government allowed to spend money on charity? Madison could not find it. If you insist on a strict constructionist view of the Constitution much of the liberal agenda of the last 70 years can be held unconstitutional.

From the concurring opinion on Griswold v Connetticutt



The founding fathers only reluctantly put in a Bill of Rights because they feared that others would use the exclusion of an item from the Bill of Rights to deny freedoms. A good share of the founding fathers were also farm boys.

Thank you for the link and the explanation. It is not humanly possible to draft and pass a document which covers every eventuality. But it needs to be understood that while some law is drafted to protect freedoms, other laws are drafted to ensure that one person's perceived freedom does not infringe upon another person to the point that it causes harm to the latter. The whole concept of "We the People" is that there are values that we collectively hold in common and that we agree to fight for and abide by, priorities that are greater to us than sexual satisfaction or the right to do something that is particularly heinous in the eyes of our fellows. Indeed, it is not within the purview of the Constitution to handle such situations. And that is why I argue that sexual deviance involving animals is not and was not intended to be one of the enumerated "rights" of the American people.

So if the Constitution and the intentions of the framers are essentially irrelevant to the argument, what is? The standards of a given community are given weight in each case, as it should be. Why should the standards in Oregon bear upon the standards in Rhode Island? This question is a double-edged sword. The answer has to be that the will of the people in a given locality takes precedence over the desires of another group not residing there.

Communities have the right to impose their values within. When an individual deviates from community standards to a certain degree, that person is sanctioned, punished, incarcerated or otherwise compelled to conform to the accepted behavior within the community. To my knowledge, bestiality has not been condoned; indeed it has been condemned in more communities. Is it wrong to have a set of values tailored to the community in which we live? Indeed, it rightly requires a lot of careful reasoning and work to effect change in a community, especially where moral values are involved.

This country was founded by men who would, for the most part, describe themselves as Christian. That is why the laws on the books, while it has been stressed that no church is to operate the government, are based upon Christian values superimposed on the teachings of Judaism. We like to point to the wisdom demonstrated by the founders, but when you look at the product of their collective wisdom, you inevitably see the underpinning of Christian values.

Abandoning these values for the sake of the gratification of a small segment of the population is not in the interest of our country or our communities. Indeed, I will speculate that the Founding Fathers would have been downright disgusted and embarrassed had a practitioner or purveyor of such deviance tried to impose upon them the "right" of his deviant behavior.

Abs,

Sorry that I misquoted you as the person questioning the length of 15 years in prison in the Michigan Law. I went back and searched the whole thread for the phrase "15 years" and discovered that it was others questioning the length of time, while you apparently researched the Michigan law that gave us that data point.


Perhaps I should have defined zoonoses. I worked in an animal research lab at one point, and we had to be very aware of the term. If I highlight an unfamiliar word, right click on the mouse, and then click on define, I'm connected to an Internet dictionary. I had presumed that was a common feature. A right click of the mouse on my computer yielded this definition:

Examples of such diseases that come to my mind as problems are AIDS, SARS, Tuberculosis, and most recently. Monkey Pox; at least two of those are believed to have become a human problem solely because of people having sex with animals. Having sex with animals is not necessarily "Safe Sex." It can and has resulted in transmitting fatal diseases to the human species. I fail to see where there is a sudden compelling public need to allow such a practice.

I find it interesting you "still have not seen a legal reason that a citizen cannot use one of his possessions in private in anyway he chooses." It would be against the law to use a knife or gun, both possessions, to murder someone in private. It has been mentioned earlier in this thread that it is against the law to assemble a bomb in private even though the components are possessions. Operating an amateur radio in the privacy of your home without a license to do so is illegal, even if it is one of your possessions. I'm allowed to possess a bottle of wine, but not to share it with my nine year old daughter, even in the privacy of my own home. I lived in a community where it was illegal to do certain types of maintenance work on your car in the privacy of your home. Our use of our possessions, in public and in private is regulated by law all the time.

The community may have the right to impose values that are applicable to the community as a whole, but they have no right to intervene in the private sexual conduct of its citizens. Just as an entire community may no longer use a law prohibiting extramissionary [a word?] sexual positions to prosecute persons for private sexual conduct, so too are they no longer capable of doing so in regards to bestiality practiced in private with one's own animal(s).

They can prohibit sexual intercourse between persons and other species in public, as that weighs on the public interest, but they are not afforded the right to legistlate the private actions of a citizen within their own home. Just as the Supreme Court ruling in the Texas sodomy case extends itself to the issue of bestiality, so too might the retention of a law invading the privacy of a citizen extend itself beyond the issue of bestiality.


With possible exception to the maintenance work (which may be contestable in a court), those actions extend beyond the household to affect the lives of other citizens. The use of a knife or gun to kill a person isn't wrong because a knife or gun was used, but because a person was murdered. That directly affects the rights of another citizen. Possessing an amateur radio isn't illegal, but transmission entails entering the publicly regulated air waves, thus making transmissions the business of the community. I'm not sure we ever clarified the law in regards to possession of a bomb. I think court rulings in regards to militia groups might yield answers to that one, but off hand it seems an explosive device which could inflict damage beyond the home fall within the ability of a community to regulate.

What I see left is possibly an argument on the basis of zoonosis, now that I know what it is. A similar argument might be made about consentual sex between members of the same species in regards to AIDS or any other STD transmitted between humans. Any unprotected sex with a human or animal of another species is not safe sex. There are, however, measures which may be taken regardless of the partner's species to practice safe sex and limit the transmission of disease.

Edited to add: While I may continue looking, so far it appears from information gathered from the ATF and university web pages that it is legal to possess explosive devices/"destructive devices" so long as their possession is accompanied by the proper registration.

That's not entirely true. Case in point: Inviting a prostitute into your house and using his/her services. That is still not in the public interest and you can be arrested, private behavior or not.

First off - it's an odd topic for it to happen on, but I think that this thread is displaying some of the best debate I've ever seen on this site. For a subject that could provoke revulsion and name-calling, the debate has been of a remarkably high quality from all comers (no pun intended). I think the only person to stray towards name calling has be me, and in my defence that was more illustrative than pejorative.

Secondly, I appreciate your three reasons why you do not find arguments for animal porn and bestiality generally to be a convincing argument for the legalisation of child abuse. Neither do I, as it goes.

However, I am still concerned that the likes of NAMBLA would see some crumbs of comfort, as the remaining societal taboos on sex and sexuality fall away in the a new phase of libertarian "enlightenment". They may be wrgon to think that way, and I'm sure that the majority of state legislatures would take the same view as you do - that there is no connection. However, this aspect of the thread has failed to convince me that there are any federal or constitutional barriers to decriminalising some aspects of paedophilia, so I still think that decriminalisation of bestiality could over time lead to renewed pressure to relax child sex laws.

And I think your point on internet animal porn is moot - there's no reason to suppose that it's legality in some jurisdictions (national or international), or even it's mere presence, is justification for throwing up our hands and bowing to it's inevitability. That argument could be (and is) used by some to justify accessing child porn, yet the authorities have recently been rather successful in catching large numbers of "enthusiasts" in jurisdictions where mere possession of such images is illegal; in the USA and UK, for instance.

I shall say it again COMMON SENSE/MORALITY!

Does a parent need to have a "don't have sex with animals" talk with his/her child, NO. Wonder why...maybe because any normal child knows not to, wonder why...because it is a NO BRAINER!

CP

Does every repugnant activity require enforced government prohibition?
Edited to add: Oops, sorry Jaime. We posted at the same time.

Sure they can. Pedophilia is illegal. Why? Because the child cannot legally give consent to the sexual act (even if the child does consent, it is not a legal act). Animals cannot give legal consent either, hence sex with animals should be illegal for the same reasons pedophilia is illegal.

Or do you propose that pedophilia be made legal as well?

Animals are not entitled to protections granted to human beings. They cannot give consent for anything and are subjected to many conditions which no human being would be legally expected to endure. They protected from abuse specifically.

Which bestiality certainly qualifies as.

But inducing cancer and other diseases does not?

You cannot oppose bestiality on cruelty to animals grounds without also opposing all manner of other things including hunting, animal experimentation, many common methods of raising and slaughtering animals for food, etc.

Animals are property. They have no rights. None.

We all have a right to shun, despise, ridicule, and protest anyone that engages in anything we consider to be animal cruelty. But if they own the animal, we have no right to stop them, sad as that might sometimes be.

This does not apply to children. Children do have rights, they just haven't reached the maturity to fully act on them. Animals will never have rights at any age.

I hate all forms of animal cruelty. But, as it is with so many things, if we start picking and choosing which kinds are ok and which aren't based on societal "norms", then we open the door to all kinds of ways in which the majority can tramp on the rights of minorities.

We have laws to protect the rights of humans. Let the animals get together and form laws for their own protection. What's that? They can't? Exactly.