-Caveat Lector- http://www.nationalpost.com/commentary/columnists/story.html?f=/stories/20010816/648161.html August 16, 2001 Animal husbandry of a different nature Guys who like to make the beast with two backs and six legs do it as a conscious lifestyle choice Mark Steyn National Post 'There used to be a time when guy-on-guy or woman-on-woman relationships were looked at as unnatural acts," said Robert Noel, a San Francisco attorney, responding to allegations of "sexual activity" with his dog. "What concern is it to anybody if there is or isn't a personal relationship?" Mr. Noel is trying to fend off a wrongful-death suit from the lesbian partner of his late neighbour, a good-looking lacrosse coach whose throat was torn out by Mr. Noel's two Presa Canarios. But he was positively insouciant in his response to the allegation that he and one of the dogs enjoyed a "personal relationship." And why wouldn't he be? The gay rights movement is on the last stage of its big push, and so the question is: what's next? Just as gays used the language of black civil rights, so Mr. Noel likened his alleged proclivities to those of gays. If you're homosexual or lesbian, I don't suppose you're terribly flattered by the comparison, but then a lot of blacks didn't appreciate the principles of the civil rights movement being appropriated by the sodomites. That's the way it goes in a land committed to ever more "expansive" and "inclusive" rights, as Al Gore puts it. There's a lot of bestiality around at the moment. Hang on, let me qualify that: in terms of actual man-and-beast action, I'd wager there's a lot less than a hundred years ago, when an isolated farmboy's best-looking date within a 20-mile radius was his pa's finest Holstein. But today guys who like to make the beast with two backs and six legs do it as a conscious lifestyle choice and, like other identity groups, they're making a lot of noise and demanding societal validation. In Maine, a fellow called Frank Buble, 71, was recently sentenced to eight years for trying to crowbar his son Phillip to death. Frank shares a house with Phillip and his, er, partner Lady, a short-legged mixed-breed bitch, and he claims he was driven to attack his son because he was tired of seeing him getting it on with the dog and could no longer tolerate Phillip's "lifestyle." Phillip for his part feels he's been doubly assaulted, first by his father and then by a legal system that refuses to acknowledge his partner. He wrote to Justice Andrew Mead at the Piscataquis County Superior Court saying that he would be exercising his right to speak at the sentencing and wanted Lady to hear what he had to say. "I'd like my significant other to attend by my side if possible as she was present in the house during the attack, though not an eyewitness to it, thank goodness," explained Phillip. "I've been informed your personal permission is needed given that my wife is not human, being a dog of about 36 pounds weight and very well behaved." The letter ended with his signature and a paw print, and underneath the words "Phillip and Lady Buble." Justice Mead denied the request, so Phillip and Lady have now come out of the kennel and are campaigning for rights for "zoo couples." "Zoo couples" is the preferred term for human/non-human relationships, "bestiality" carrying somewhat negative connotations. Testifying before a legislative committee in the state capital Augusta, Phillip said that " 'Zoos' are born with a true love for animals and have a lifelong commitment to their care." He and Lady "live together as a married couple. In the eyes of God we are truly married." Furthermore, if it's legal for two humans to have sex and legal for two animals to have sex, why should it be illegal for a human to have sex with an animal? If Maine passes an anti-bestiality law, says Phillip, "it will be a disservice to zoo couples and would keep zoo couples from coming out of the closet and drive us deeper underground. This helps no one and would force me out of state." Hold your horses. New Hampshire, here he comes. How should society react to animal husbandry as practised by Mr. Buble? Peter Singer, Princeton's Professor of Ethics, has been in the forefront of the movement for "animal rights." Taking abortion politics to its logical next step, he believes we should be allowed to kill infants because they're not "morally equivalent" to fully-fledged persons. By contrast, animals are all proper persons, and only what he calls our "species-ism" prevents us from seeing it. Therefore we should test pharmaceuticals on disabled children and comatose adults. Yet, although we have no right to experiment on animals, to keep them in captivity or to eat them with tomato, lettuce and cheese on a sesame seed bun, Professor Singer reckons we should be able to roger them. In a recent essay called Heavy Petting, he writes, "Not so long ago, any form of sexuality not leading to the conception of children was seen as, at best, wanton lust, or worse, a perversion. One by one, the taboos have fallen ... Sodomy? That's all part of the joy of sex ... But not every taboo has crumbled. Heard anyone chatting at parties lately about how good it is having sex with their dog?" Still, Professor Singer knows where to draw the line: some sex acts are "clearly wrong" and "should remain crimes. Some men use hens as a sexual object, inserting their penis into the cloaca, an all-purpose channel for waste and for the passage of the egg. This is usually fatal to the hen, and in some cases she will be deliberately decapitated just before ejaculation in order to intensify the convulsions of its sphincter. This is cruelty, clear and simple." But, then again, "is it worse for the hen than living for a year or more crowded with four or five other hens in barren wire cages so small that they can never stretch their wings, and then being stuffed into crates to be taken to the slaughterhouse, strung upside down on a conveyor belt and killed?" So even guys'n'chicks isn't so bad if you use a battery hen. What was interesting was the reaction of the animal rights crowd. Karen Davis, PhD, the president of United Poultry Concerns Inc., hoped that "conceptually attacking the taboo against bestiality" would help "people to overcome their profound prejudice and discrimination against nonhuman animals." Ingrid Newkirk, president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said Professor Singer was "daring and honest" and does not "condone any violent acts." On the matter of consensual sex, she was vague. "The whole concept of consent with animals is very different," she said. You begin to see what's in it for PETA: if Phillip and Lady Buble are a recognized couple, going to the Elks Lodge together, dancing cheek to cheek as the band plays Puppy Love, it becomes all but impossible to hunt and eat animals. The law can't recognize Daisy the cow as Peter Singer's significant other but her sister Gertie as merely next week's Double Whoppa with Cheese. Piscataquis County may be holding the line but in other jurisdictions animals have already embarked on the same legal evolution blacks and women underwent. Boulder, Colorado was the first of several municipalities to pass legislation reclassifying "pet owners" as "pet guardians." San Francisco became the first U.S. city to make it illegal to put non-terminal dogs and cats to sleep. A 'Frisco cat now enjoys greater protection from over-zealous euthanasia enthusiasts than an elderly Dutch uncle. And most of the Vermont Supreme Court's arguments in favour of extending the benefits of marriage to gay couples could as easily apply to a spinster and her cat. In fact, the newly elected Republican legislature in Vermont made an artful effort the other week to revise the state's "civil unions" law by extending it not just to gays but to grandmothers living with unmarried kids, two maiden aunts sharing a house or any other consensual arrangement. Faced with an opportunity to "celebrate diversity" in all its infinite variety, the Democrats went berserk. Such a move, they insisted, would be supremely insulting and degrading to homosexuals and lesbians. But once you redefine human institutions, it gets a little easier to redefine them again and again. Whether or not animal rights are the new new thing, something will be. The fox is in the henhouse, the cat's among the chickens; it's absurd to think we can let sleeping dogs lie. [INLINE] ________________________________________________________ News | Financial Post | Commentary | Science & Tech | Arts & Life | Sports | Diversions | Forums | Weather Careers | Subscriptions | Site Map | Headline Scan | Advertise | Contests | NP Events | Contact Us | User Help Copyright © 2001 National Post Online | Privacy Policy | Corrections National Post Online is a Hollinger / CanWest Publication. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! 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