How did it get decriminalised? (self.zoophilia)
submitted 2015-02-22 16:54:34 by furvert_tail Equine, large canid
Obviously a worry for some of us is it being recriminalised, but how did it ever get made legal in the first places?
I know some places legalised it by accident, because "sodomy" laws covered both and they forgot about us when the bans were overturned, but was that true for all places? Or have there ever been explicit successes that we can look to?
Yes, it's true basically everywhere. When it isn't, there were no laws to be overturned in the first place.
I even know of at least one country that forgot about zoophiles when it recriminalised gays, but it's gone.
In the 60s the free love types managed to get a lot of things moved out into the open where they were examined and the laws found punitive for no other resason than religion. Many felt the secular society that we wanted was not served and the laws were substatually removed. Some overturned in highest courts.
The religous and controlling didn't like this so fought back. For instance, anal sex in Canada is legal amongst consenting adults, unless there are more than two present. Why that is is certainly beyond me but they had to create that law from scratch in '68 since the goverment decided to remove the sodomy laws. Bestiality was also quickly re-criminalized. Conservative pressure in the politics of Canada I am afraid. Unfortunately, along with the US, Canada has been moving steadily more fearful and conservative.
In many places, homosexuality was equated with zoophilia, so when laws pertaining to the former were repealed, they also legalised the latter. The example of East Germany comes to mind, which legalised homosexuality and bestiality in 1969, both of which remained legal until the reunification.
I thought Germany only banned it recently? (Although, from what I heard it was banned in the way that the UK banned sleep sex: if the act is agreed to have occurred, the onus is on the defendant to prove they were good. Not that my German is good enough to consider reading their laws.)
It was banned in 2012/2013 after a lot of allegations for which no shred of evidence has been presented to this day.
It's "only" a petty offense (I think that's the equivalent), but you can still be fined up to 25000€ for "using an animal for sexual acts or for training it for sexual acts with others or making it available to other and thus to force it to behave inappropriate for the species" („ein Tier für eigene sexuelle Handlungen zu nutzen oder für sexuelle Handlungen Dritter abzurichten oder zur Verfügung zu stellen und dadurch zu artwidrigem Verhalten zu zwingen.“).
I'm still very confused what "inappropriate for the species" actually means, legally speaking. If someone is in front of a court and says "I had sex with that dog, but it's not inappropriate for his species to behave this way.", how would they actually argue for the law?
I may get this wrong but I think a few years ago denmark had a small debate whether to make a ban, so they tasked an animal ethics council to find out about the then current situation and whether it should be banned and they said no and so they didn't: http://fifine.org/2.Ebene/Danish_Animal_Ethics_Council_-_November_2006_Report_Unofficial_English_Translation.pdf
I only found this http://www.thelocal.dk/20141013/bestiality-ban-not-needed-ethics-council-says but I think I remember reading an older article about it, on thelocal too... But it's very hard to find anything with substance because of the amount of trash articles like http://www.wnd.com/2006/09/38123/. Soon these claims will be 10 years old and still not a shred of evidence has ever been presented by any of the dozens and dozens of "journalists" writing about it...
Anyway, that's not a story of how it got decriminalized but how it was not recriminalized and they actually used objective arguments for and against it... Except for the one guy in the animal ethics council...
Yes, most of the time it was "accidental" when "sodomy" was decriminalized (i.e. the gays). And then again every country that starts "new" for example after a revolution, needs to make all the laws again, and often they forget about zoophilia.