Flori-duh! Come for the sunshine, stay for the bestiality!

Okay… its funny, but it’s not funny. Oh, but it’s just so freakin FUNNY!

Michael Bauer, a Florida Assistant State Attorney, is on a campaign to outlaw bestiality in the Sunshine State. A noble crusade, I guess. I wasn’t aware that the practice had reached such epidemic proportions. It isn’t the what so much as the how that is so funny.

According to Bauer’s letter to the legislature, “The clear status of our state law at this point is that the Florida Legislature has not prohibited bestiality in our State. Bestiality is currently legal in Florida!”

Lock up the sheep and your daughters. This is the state that spent the time to pass a law against the improper use or mutilation of the Confederate flag (Fla. Stat. s 256.051), a comprehensive (and unconstitutional) obscenity statute (Fla. Stat. s 847.001 et. seq.) and that passed a constitutional amendment regarding how pregnant pigs may be confined in the state. While all that was going on, the Florida legislature “forgot” to make having sex with animals illegal.

Bauer’s plea to the legislature seems to be written in a serious tone with noble intentions, but how he kept from laughing coffee out his nose as he wrote it is beyond me.

In late 2006, I prosecuted the case of State of Florida v. Alan J. Yoder, Leon Circuit Case Number 2005-CF-3027. Mr. Yoder had been charged by law enforcement with Felony Animal Cruelty, though the charge if available should have been Bestiality or Sexual Activity Involving an Animal. I will not go into the disgusting facts of the case other than to say Mr. Yoder was having sexual relations with his male dog. The complainant in the case called the police when she observed Mr. Yoder fondling the dog. I will leave off further discussion by simply stating that in subsequent discussions with law enforcement, Mr. Yoder spoke freely about his regular sexual activities with his dog and said he would take the dog for a walk prior to sex to “prevent fecal impact.” I have attached a copy of the probable cause (with the complainant’s name omitted) so the facts can speak for themselves. As you can see, law enforcement incorrectly advised Mr. Yoder that they were investigating bestiality and that “it was a felony crime.”

Bauer explains that his office tried to prosecute Yoder under the animal cruelty statute, but that the activity just didn’t fit the crime. It looks like he was charged with breaching the peace (source).

I can easily envision such a case of Bestiality being charged as Animal Cruelty before the trier of fact, be it a judge or a jury, and the Defense expert veterinarian testifying that although he finds “the Defendant’s behavior shocking and disgusting, the animal was unharmed and otherwise well cared for.” If such a case ever made it to trial, the resulting acquittal would be an easy lesson for the prosecutor to learn.

I guess that he is right, and I must applaud him for this analysis. Bauer thinks that there should be a law. However, instead of simply trying to shoehorn Yoder’s behavior into a law where it doesn’t fit, he did the right thing — petitioned the legislature to pass a law. If only all prosecutors were this ethical.

Bauer’s good ethics aside, he does get a little bit hysterical later on in his letter.

The most important consideration for the Committee to address, however, is the impact this crime of nature could have on humans. We need not look any further than the biological holocaust of HIV and AIDS to see that animals can transmit horrible viruses to the human population. Whether this virus was transmitted by a man having unnatural relations with a monkey or was bitten by a monkey or even cut himself while obtaining a pelt, the fact remains that bodily fluid transmission from monkey to human has caused the untimely death of 25 million men, women and children.

Whaaa?

Bauer could have made a pretty coherent argument in three short sentences: “Bestiality is disgusting. Everyone presumes that it is illegal. Please make it clearly illegal.” That probably would have convinced the reader, and it wouldn’t have given me any fodder with which to make fun of him.

The whole “a gay flight attendant had sex with a monkey” myth has been roundly dispelled by the scientific community, and should be shelved along with that Richard-Gere-with-a-gerbil story. As if you need a scientist to explain either urban myth to you. As Dave Chappelle said, “nobody fucks monkeys and people, you idiot! You either fuck monkeys or you fuck people!”

AIDS made the jump from monkeys to people through non-sexual contact — most likely through eating monkey flesh. (source) If we really are concerned about animal to human disease transmission, then we should outlaw pets altogether. If we have made it thousands of years with dogs licking our faces, and cats eating off our plates, and dogs sleeping in our beds, we’re not about to see a dog-AIDS apocalypse arising from Mr. Yoder’s really messed up peccadillo.

Oh, wait, Bauer does acknowledge that there is debate on this issue — but, he doesn’t let that acknowledgment get in the way of demonstrating his bat-shit craziness.

While the origin of HIV and AIDS is debated, those who try to make sense of matters in a world many believe is ruled by a higher power or nature find that such a holocaust could not possibly have come from more innocent origins.

What in the name of Yoder’s dog-screwing emporium does THAT mean? In other words, people who believe in god or nature believe that AIDS couldn’t have come from anything except people having sex with animals? And people still ask me why I don’t want to get married in a church or baptize my child.

Bauer gets even funnier. I swear, when Hollywood’s writers go on strike, they should just comb the Florida courts and legislature for material.

When it comes to regulations, our own Department of Health could more properly advise on the huge risks associated with the unsanitary actions of bestiality. I firmly believe that bestiality is a crime against nature that remains such whether we chose to call it that or not.

In other words, he doesn’t know a damn thing about whether bestiality presents a grave biological risk or not — this is about “a crime against nature.” Dumping chemicals into the ground is a crime against nature. Having sex with a dog is just plain disgusting. Disgusting does not equal crime against nature. Nature doesn’t care if you have sex with a dog or not.

Don’t get me wrong, I have no desire to protect the right of Floridians to get jiggy with their dogs. If such a measure were put to the voters, I can’t say that I would campaign against it. Maybe I should, but I can’t say that I would.

I proudly proclaim that I am both a libertarian (socially, but not economically) and a libertine. But, perhaps this issue exposes a hole in my philosophy — a Legal Satyricon hypocrisy. That’s right… I confess that perhaps my view on bestiality is hypocritical.

Mr. Bauer and I are equally uncomfortable with others having sex with animals (and naturally, neither of us look at a duck and say “mmmm, gotta get me some of that“). The only difference between us is that I can not come up with a valid reason to get the government involved unless it crosses the threshold into cruelty.

On a logical level, it can not be disputed that if a consenting donkey and a consenting human have sex, and the donkey isn’t hurt in the process, there is no legitimate societal interest in banning that act. Therefore, this is a matter of personal liberty into which the state should not intrude. When the state does so, anyone who values liberty should stand up against any such intrusion. May Martin Niemöller forgive me — for when they come for the zoophiliacs, I won’t likely speak up. (That’s my hypocrisy in action).

I suppose that I could oppose Mr. Bauer’s measure on the grounds that it is simply a stupid waste of time. Once the measure passes, does anyone really believe that it will act as a deterrent? Mr. Yoder didn’t seem to care that his neighbors knew that he was a dog-fucker. He invited his neighbor to join in! (That’s how he got caught). He proudly described the act and how he avoided “fecal impact.” Someone twisted enough to get aroused by canine haunches is not going change their mind because the legal status of dog-fucking changed.

At the end of the day, this is just more feel-good morality-based legislation. I agree that we should shun animal-fuckers. I wouldn’t want to shake hands with one, and none will be attending my dinner parties. But, I wish that my government would just act a little more rationally.

Nevertheless, I don’t invite the inter-species erotica crowd to ask me to take up their cause. I am really busy.