Bestiality Law? Florida Takes Another Shot At Passing Bill

All eyes on Florida today, as a nation of journalists will jockey to be the first to tweet about Florida Governor Charlie Crist's decision to run for the U.S. Senate as an Independent, and thus claim scooplet supremacy. But while we're on the subject of Florida, can we briefly talk about the animals? Because the Florida Senate is apparently having a hard time doing something about the animals, specifically, the way people keep having sex with them.

The state of Florida is a hot and flat place filled with sinkholes and swamps and theme parks and large covens of crotchety retirees, all of which form the ideal environment for people to enthusiastically sex up their pets. Mostly, they like to romance dogs, but there is also this recent case of "a man from a place called Mossy Head who was suspected of accidentally asphyxiating a family goat during a sex act," which I'm surprised hasn't yet been made into a movie by Harmony Korine.

As everyone who has ever reported this story will tell you, "Florida is one of only a dozen or so states that don't have a law against bestiality on the books." So, Democratic State Senator Nan Rich is taking her second shot at getting a law passed that would criminalize this sort of thing. This past Monday, the State Senate, by unanimous vote, passed a law that would make this sort of thing "a first-degree misdemeanor... with a penalty of up to a year in jail." It now goes to the State House, where a similar measure spurred by Rich and passed by the Florida State Senate last year failed to pass, despite the fact that it was pretty clear about how it was about people in Florida copulating with dogs and goats and whatnot.

Maybe they'll have better luck this year, but with the Tea Partiers always walking around complaining about government interfering in the lives of Americans, who knows what will happen!

I'll remind you that I heard on the "Colbert Report" that the grandmother of U.S. Congressman Bill Posey (R-Fla.) is rumored to have had hot, carnal relations with an alligator "after the great Okeechobee Hurricane." Posey has refused to quash these rumors, saying only that "there is no reason to say that I'm the illegitimate grandson of an alligator." But no one ever said that he was the illegitimate grandson of an alligator, so, hmmmmm.

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Comments

[Richard Greenman]

05:30 AM on 05/04/2010

Passing this law would pave the way to lock up most of the state's Republican's!! All they would have left for a good time on Saturday night is their brother's and sisters??

[joeyfoto]

01:17 AM on 05/03/2010

They really don't need another reason to put people in jail in Florida. they already have a saying here: "COME TO FLORIDA ON VACATION, LEAVE ON PROBATION."

They can't afford to run the states hospitals but the jails and prisons are full. Floridians are fighting to have a future but it's an uphill battle against the dominant social condition... which is ignorance, compounded by stupidity, reenforced by bigotry. Cowboy-Up.... but watch out for those talking chickens...

[TheDodoBird]

12:52 AM on 05/01/2010

Wow. Does this really require that much thought? If someone said to me "Should it be illegal for people to have sex with animals?" I would answer YES before they had a chance to finish. But I guess for those people that enjoy this kind of act, it might take some consideration first...

[soapington]

12:50 AM on 05/01/2010

To get to the heart of this, you have to look (yes, you really do) at those weird remarks that several Republicans have made - and continue to make - during discussions of gay marriage.

There have been widespread Republican claims that if we allow gay people to marry, where will it end? With people marrying dogs, horses and other domestic and farm animals, they said. One should bear in mind that in the minds of these people, it is vitally necessary to have Draconian laws against homosexual practices, because without them everybody would be vulnerable to homoerotic impulses - in other words, if there weren't laws against we'd all be gay.

This is remarkable for two reasons: first, for the the equation of homosexuality and bestiality; and, two, for the implication that if there weren't strong laws against it, we would all not only be gay, but we'd all be b"ggering domestic and farm animals every opportunity we get.

I don't know about you, but I find this very bizarre. And a bit unhealthy.

[rgateman]

12:35 AM on 05/01/2010

oh man! there goes the futures market on Florida Sheep and sleep rentals. bummer

[Bude]

11:10 PM on 04/30/2010

America has gone mad.

[hypyrwyf]

11:08 PM on 04/30/2010

I always thought the repubs were being hyperbolic when they talked about their slippery slopes and gay marriage and guys wanting to marry their dogs. If Florida can't pass a bestiality law, the slippery slope looks less hyperbolic. (They really DO want to marry their dogs :P)

[Non Sibi]

12:31 AM on 05/01/2010

This gives a whole new meaning to what "base" means to a 'thug.

[MSNichols]

10:51 PM on 04/30/2010

If they ban sex with animals, Ann coulter would be off limits

[TheDodoBird]

12:50 AM on 05/01/2010

Nice...

[shryock]

10:21 PM on 04/30/2010

why is it always the republicans who want to make all these sex laws? do the spend the entirety of their time dreaming up ways of having sex that they should outlaw? is there a law that you cannot have sex with your truck? why not? don't we need one? gosh, and is there a law that you cannot have sex with a tree? why not? don't we need one of those too?
honestly, people, how about talking about florida's economy, or lack thereof?
or how about talking about the I-95 crime corridor?
or how about talking about protecting election honesty and preventing election fraud?
do we really really need to spend any more time talking about republican sex fantasies?

[Uncle Bill]

09:53 PM on 04/30/2010

Now I know where republicans come from! I thought there was something different about them, especially the upper crusty types with the hunting dog and horse paintings, I never realized those were their ancestors....

[soapington]

09:41 PM on 04/30/2010

I'm delighted to see that brown pelicans are off the endangered species list. I wonder how they got to be there in the first place.

I refuse to speculate any further.

[Jim281]

07:15 PM on 04/30/2010

JUST SAY NAY to horse sex! (hehehehehehe)

[Jim281]

07:14 PM on 04/30/2010

Wasn't there recently a western conservatard that somehow linked gay rights to animal sex? Yeah, there was. the man is desperate for a horse. (Not really sure whether it was a mare or a stallion he is dreamin on. HEY FLORIDA! What do you do with those retired thoroughbreads from Gulf Stream? Maybe you could send him one, and put an end to his panic attackes.

[z420er]

12:47 PM on 05/02/2010

Actually based on what I saw on tv the other day those horses are getting inhumanely shipped to and murdered in places like Mexico.

[Jim281]

07:11 PM on 04/30/2010

Get you head out of your @ss, Nan! If, as a legislator, you think this issue is anything but an embarrassment to you and your state, YOU ARE DONE!!!!

THIS IS A RETHUGLICAN ISSUE!!

[Henwood]

07:04 PM on 04/30/2010

Ever wonder where the expression "lapdog" came from?