Necrophilic Beastiality

[Guest]

I was listening to a sensationalist liberal and paranoid conservative wax long, on far to many unholy tangets while they were supposed to talk about the Suprem Court striking down sodemy laws.
And it hit me there is no longer a basis to stop necrophilic beastiality(the both liked to talk about beastialty and necrophilia as seperate issues).

Is this bad thing?

[Griselda]

I really don't follow at all. Perhaps you need to find some new sources?

-Griselda

[Occhidiangela]

Then it is much worse to . . . I'd better leave it hanging. :o

Yeah, the loophole you refer to is a bad thing, given the human propensity to "just do it!"

Sorry, it's late, can't come up with a better punch line . . .

[Guest]

"new sources"?

If you mean I should find some new ranting pundits to listen to - I think youre right. If you mean sources on whats legal, naw I am right.

The conservatives say we are on the road to legal beastiality, necrophilia, pedophilia and incest.
They are just out right wrong on pedophilia and incest. We have laws against these for good reasons that are not protected by privacy.

The liberals point out that beastiality is covered cruelity to animal laws. And the liberals also point out that necrophilia is covered by desecration of corpse laws.

Im really thinking about how funny it will look when Rick Santorum stands up and warns the nation about an impending wave of necrophilic beastiality.

[whyBish]

Is this bad thing?

Well the Aussies need some basis to launch their sheep jokes from ;)

[goldfish]

And it hit me there is no longer a basis to stop necrophilic beastiality(the both liked to talk about beastialty and necrophilia as seperate issues).

Um, have you actually read Lawrence v. Texas? Based on what Lawrence actually says, I am at a loss to understand your logic of "no longer a basis" for necrophilia / bestiality laws. (For starters, Lawrence is based on due process arguments that probably don't apply; the historical discussion doesn't apply; the state arguably has a compelling interest in regulation of those activities; etc.).

Before commenting on the effects of Lawrence, I would recommend reading the decision. Here's a link:

http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/26...2pdf/02-102.pdf

[harrije]

Strictly speaking, necrophilia is a rather disgusting form of vandalism. It is prosecuted as a property crime against the estate of the deceased. It cannot be prosecuted as a crime against a person because our system explicitely and consistently defines a person as someone who (a) has been born and (B) has not yet died. *

Beastiality can be (and in some cases is) prosecuted as an animal abuse crime when it is prosecuted at all.

Neither act is protected under Lawrence v. Texas. Justice Kennedy set out four basic tests for situations in which a government may step in and regulate a sex act:

1) Someone was forced or coerced into participating without consent. This covers both forceable rape and drug rape.

2) Someone was under the legal age for consenting to sex. This covers statutory rape and molestation. States are still given discretion on what constitutes an appropriate age for consent and under what conditions similarly (though not identically) aged teenagers may engage in sex with each other.

3) An economic transaction takes place. This covers prostitution. The exchange of money turns an otherwise private sex act into an act of commerce, and governments of all levels have the authority to regulate commerce within their jurisdiction.

4) The act takes place in public. This covers sex in parks, beaches, public restrooms, and the street corner. In order to claim a right to privacy, a person first has to take reasonable measures to ensure that they are conducting their business in private. Makes sense, no?

The entire slippery-slope argument (call it the Santorum Slide) is a scare tactic meant to drum up voter support in certain key demographics. In a rational world, we could simply point at the Santorums and laugh. However, this is America, and irrational thinking can buy enough votes to swing an election. We also have such wonderful circus sideshows as Hardball and Crossfire, in which the most unstable and diametrically opposed irrational freaks are goaded into yelling at each other for a half hour. In such an environment, the extremists on both ends flourish and sensible thinking gets lost in the muddle.

My advice for you is to read the actual Supreme Court decisions for yourself. They are surprisingly direct and readable, and they are posted to the Internet for easy and quick access. The actual decisions, including any concurring opinions and dissenting opinions, are a refreshing change to the simple-minded "us versus them" mentality of popular media and infotainment sources.

Some other relevant cases you might be interested in:

Griswold v. Connecticut -- found that the government cannot intervene in a married couple's decision whether "to bear or beget a child" by banning the sale or use of contraceptives. This was the first appearance of a right to privacy in Court literature.

Eisenstadt v. Baird -- extended Griswold to cover the purchase, distribution, or use of contraceptives by unmarried couples.

Roe v. Wade -- found that a state's interest in protecting a developing fetus cannot be exerted during the first trimester of pregnancy; it can sometimes be exerted in the second trimester; and can almost always be exerted in the final trimester. The case is far more nuanced than one might expect from reading or listening to mainstream news sources.

Bowers v. Hardwick -- found that Georgia's law against sodomy was constitutional and valid. This case was directly overturned by Lawrence. One important factor to note: Georgia's law applied to homosexual sodomy and heterosexual sodomy, but was only ever prosecuted against the former.

Casey v. Planned Parenthood of Pennsylvania -- fine-tuned the abortion issue first presented in Roe. The trimester divisions were thrown out, and the magic age of viability (around 20-22 weeks) was re-introduced as the barrier between a woman's interests and the state's interests regarding a developing fetus. Justice Souter goes to great lengths to detail the history of abortion laws in Western culture and how the viability, or quickining, stage was applied in prior centuries.

Roemer v. Evans -- found that Colorado's state constitutional amendment banning local governments from offering standard benefits and protections to homosexuals. Justice Kennedy wrote for the six-vote majority, pierces many of the ultra-right arguments often thrown about as defenses of anti-gay laws.

Lawrence and Garner v. Texas -- explicitely overruled Bowers v. Hardwick and found that the state has no valid justification for regulating the consentual, private, and non-economic sexual acts of its citizens, even if they involve members of the same sex. Justice O'Conner argued separately that Texas's law violated the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by exclusively criminalizing homosexual sodomy. She would support a law that banned all sodomy, as was the case in Bowers (a decision she supported).

-----

One interesting point in Kennedy's decision is that, while the Texas law and similar laws are seldom prosecuted, they are often used in more subtle ways to discriminate against homosexuals. A Texas state employee who came out as gay could be summarily fired; he would be considered a presumed criminal and thus denied employment. A gay couple could be denied housing on the grounds that they are presumed sex criminals. Scrapping the law from the books will have far-ranging implications for the lives of homosexuals far beyond the bedroom. However, necrophiliacs will still be subject to prosecution.

[Nicodemus Phaulkon]

In a rational world, we could simply point at the Santorums and laugh. However, this is America, and irrational thinking can buy enough votes to swing an election. We also have such wonderful circus sideshows as Hardball and Crossfire, in which the most unstable and diametrically opposed irrational freaks are goaded into yelling at each other for a half hour. In such an environment, the extremists on both ends flourish and sensible thinking gets lost in the muddle.

THAT was poetry. I applaud your wordsmithing, and give you a hearty welcome to the Lounge.

*tips helm*

[harrije]

Thank you for your words and your welcome...but rest assured, I am a long, long time lurker, and a frequent poster on the old boards!

[Nicodemus Phaulkon]

Blame my non-recognition as a fault of my comparative neophyte-standing, then; I was fooled by the "join date". ;)

It was just so NICE to read a piece that not only respected grammar but actually put some effort into its delivery. Art, really... and to be respected. There are some who slither about around here without any due recognition of proper spelling, much less that their message becomes garbled when they forget to conjugate, punctuate, or even put verbs with their supposedly-related nouns.

In any case: I certainly welcome your active participation. :)

[Occhidiangela]

Griswold v. Connecticut

May I ask what the state of Connecticut ever had against an honest blacksmith from Khandaras? :) I tell you, government in just getting into everyone's business, even people who don't exist!

OBTW: thanks for the post, nice explanation. :)

[harrije]

Griswold can only be considered honest if his prices are matched up against Wirt's! Trust me, I do not shed tears while pelting arrows at his zombified carcass.

I have to correct myself. I have not read Griswold (1965) itself for some time. It is not the first time the Court addressed the issue of the right to privacy, but it is the first time that right was brought up in a case involving sex. Mrs. Estelle Griswold was director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut. She was convicted under the accessory provisions of a Connecticut statute forbidding the use of contraceptives for birth control. (Translation: she gave medical advice to a couple and prescribed condoms.)

The Court found that the Fourth Amendment's right of Due Process (no "unreasonable searches or seizures" without "due process of law") and the First Amendment's right of association created an umbrella of privacy around individual beliefs and actions, and applied that umbrella to cover the marital bed.

Connecticut's statute only forbade the sale or use of contraceptives for birth control. It was perfectly legal to buy and use a condom in order to prevent sexually transmitted diseases, even if that was only a thinly disguised cover for their actual use. In actual practice, the law was used as a cover to shut down public birth control clinics in Connecticut while allowing an "out" for more affluent women to obtain contraceptives through more discreet private physicians.

[Guest]

If you werent implying that I didnt understand, then my error :)

I do agree with the one poster who seemed to be saying that that in many cases this rather vile act was legal already.

However Harrije , you seemed to have totally missed my point about this unpleasant absurdity. It is not the subject any ruling you mentioned other than for privacy issues. And now it would be more or less impossible to make a law against it, due to the privacy ruling.



I made this post primarily because the escalating rhetoric of TV pundits struck me as funny.

I made it secondarily because it raises the interesting (interesting to me) question of whether it is ever reasonable to legislate purely on the basis of morality.

[Jeunemaitre]

I do agree with the one poster who seemed to be saying that that in many cases this rather vile act was legal already.

Okay, so the legal question presented in the original post was whether desecration of an animal corpse by "sexual contact" has been prohibited by animal cruelty legislation (or is the corpse covered under "corpse desecration").

The answer, like most all of Law, is: It depends...
How is the term animal defined? IF an "animal" is a non-human entity that has been born and has not yet died (borrowing from harrije), then following the animals death, would it's corpse be subject to animal cruelty statutes, or does it become a piece of property? :huh:

Hypothetical
A man has his pet bird stuffed following its demise, but now realizes that he has new-found feelings for the "ex-parrot." He is observed through a bedroom window (curtains were drawn, but blown aside by the wind) to be using the stuffed bird in a less than savory manner :o . Are his actions with a piece of his own property covered under his expectation of privacy in his home, or is the former pet still considered an animal, and the man could thus be guilty of i) animal cruelty, or ii) corpse desecration?

I'm not a lawyer, but my wife plays one at law school and she makes me proof-read her papers, and I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express a while back.

[pakman]

"Do you like sheep?"

"Yes, why?"

"would you ever %#( a sheep?"

"NO!"

"What if you were another sheep, then would you %(&@ a sheep?"

"Yeah"

"Sheep #%!*%$ !!"

Had to get that in, can't remember what movie it's from, leaning towards Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.

[whyBish]

"Do you like sheep?"

"Yes, why?"

I'm sure Elric would tell you that those are the first two lines of the NZ anthem :P

[harrije]

Ah, sex with a dead dog.

Legally speaking, having sex with a taxidermically stuffed dog would be nearly identical to masturbating into a pillow. As long as it is done in private, no party would have standing to bring suit in criminal court. As distasteful as many of us would find the act, there are no reasonable grounds for prosecuting it as an offense.

Now, a non-stuffed animal corpse would be another matter entirely. The avenues for prosecution would depend on the relative freshness of the corpse. If an animal was killed and then used as a sexual aid, then charges of animal cruelty could be brought, possibly with the extenuating sexual circumstances to be taken into account during sentencing.

If the corpse were sufficiently old, the case could be prosecuted as a health code violation. Rotting corpses are a significant threat to community health and safety. A ranch tenant near my hometown is currently facing charges of both animal cruelty and public health violations after letting over 150 pigs starve to death. If I recall correctly, and I admit to being too lazy to look up the case, he faces up to three years in state prison if convicted.

=====

It is important to keep in mind that criminal and civil cases in the U.S. must be brought by or on behalf of someone who can claim injury as a result of the act. In criminal proceedings, the state takes the part of the victim of the crime. In cases such as murder or theft, the victim is easy to identify. In others, such as public sex acts, the victim is the overarching sense of community decency. Laws attempting to regulate private sexual behavior have long been justified as falling under the umbrella of community decency. Lawrence finds that the community has no standing to meddle in an otherwise private and consensual act between adults.

The reality of the whole beastiality issue is that such crimes will still be prosecuted as vigorously as before. The prosecution will argue that Lawrence does not hold because the case does not involve consenting adults. The judge or jury will likely find that argument very persuasive. Such a case will never reach the Supreme Court, or likely even a Circuit Court, because no one with the sufficient funds for an appellate strategy would want to touch the case with a ten foot pole. Even the most controversial Constitutional challenges don't make it up the appellate ladder until or unless there is a significant trend of support in the public at large. You don't have to worry about necrophilic beastiality until Will and Spot (RIP) becomes a consistent top-ten prime time television show.

[Vandiablo]

You don't have to worry about necrophilic beastiality until Will and Spot (RIP) becomes a consistent top-ten prime time television show.

HAW HAW HAW *snort* HAW HAW HAW *snortsnort* HAW!

Thanks for the excellent post and the nice gem of a title at the end.

============

Right after my dog died (I wrote about it on this forum somewhere), I was quite upset, and petted her for about half an hour. I kept the body overnight in the living room, to let our two cats know she was dead. (Yes, both cats did check her out at some point.) When the time came (about 18 hours after death) to eternally part with the body, I petted her one more time as I choked back a sob. If prosecuted, I'm hoping to get a jury trial...

(She was cremated, so if I go to prison for this, I can truly say, "Never pet a burning dog...")

-V

[Occhidiangela]

"Never burn a petted dog?" :D

For The King!!!!!!!!

[harrije]

And since I'm bored today....

The state of Texas, which found it so necessary to tell homosexuals how (not) to conduct their sex lives, apparantly does not even have a beastiality statute on the books.

And since I'm still bored, I'm off to find a sheep...