You’d think that Michigan legislators would have better things to do than discuss what people do with their butts. What with their water being full of lead, their governor having known about it for a long time before he bothered to tell any of the residents, and children suffering permanent brain damage and death. Clearly none of those things needs legislative action. Let’s discuss people’s butts, says Michigan Senate.
The bill (passed by the Senate) calls ridin’ the dirt trail an “abominable and detestable crime against nature,” and makes it the same as bestiality under the law. The bill was introduced (of course) by a GOP Senator, and it is ostensibly a bill against animal abuse, increasing punishment for animal abusers. An important bill, and, other than the gay thing, a laudable goal.
And yet… In a move that Dr Freud could see coming, the Hershey highway makes its way into the bill.
Sen. Rick Jones was asked why he couldn’t just change the wording slightly to take out the human-on-human sexual acts (literally just removing three words), but he responded that it would kill the whole bill. Apparently, Michigan GOP Senators are SO bigoted that they will refuse to discuss animal welfare unless there is also a heavy dollop of repressed Medieval sexual bigotry to pass as well.
Obviously, this law is unconstitutional. It’s common knowledge that sodomy can’t be criminalized. In 2003, SCOTUS ruled sodomy laws unconstitutional in Lawrence v. Texas (although the question could be asked how it took til aught-three to make that ruling!).
Not to mention: how on earth would they police it? Pretty sure spying on people’s bedrooms (or kitchens, or living rooms…) goes against some sort of basic human civil liberty that those tea partiers are always going on about. And there are already public indecency laws on the books, so the only thing this law would prevent is private fun times.
Shame on Sen. Jones and shame on the Michigan senate for trying to enact this abomination. They’re trying to make their anti-gay bigotry into law by tacking it onto a bill to protect lovable pets. Equating homosexuality with bestiality has been a longstanding tactic of anti-gay bigots in order to dehumanize gays, and to create an environment in which people can label their bigotry as “discomfort.”
But it is bigotry. There is no objective evidence that butt fun is harmful in any way (except for maybe some minor logistical issues). And you wanna talk about what’s a “crime against nature”? Homosexual behavior has been observed in hundreds of species. But homophobia? Scientists have yet to observe any animal other than humans that display that particular affectation. Now, let’s talk about which behavior should be criminalized.
Featured image is by Esparta Palma, available under a Creative Commons 2.0 license.
