Government Out of Bedrooms, but into Barnyards

I should say at the outset that I approach this delicate subject sheepishly, but this development bears noting. In a rare example of a Western country taking steps to restrict previously recognized sexual liberties, Germany is seeking to ban bestiality. (Its supporters call it zoophilia – are opponents zoophobes?) This will presumably put out to pasture Germany’s erotic zoos, where visitors go beyond heavy petting.

Germany legalized bestiality in 1969, together with sodomy. When Justice Scalia analogized from the decriminalization of the latter to the former in his Lawrence dissent, he was widely denounced, but apparently the liberal Germans agreed with him, at least until now.

I suspect the motives behind the ban are entirely moralistic. Yet the government cannot come out and say so. Thus effort is made to distinguish the matter from Germany’s libertarian approach to sexual matters by suggesting the animals do not consent in the way consenting humans do. Yes, but they don’t consent to being bought or sold, or butchered, either, and they are not human, so consent is a red herring. This would not pass intermediate scrutiny in the U.S.

It is an invariable aspect of sexual morality regulation that those who regard a practice as amoral, or vile, also believe it has negative practical effects. The latter allows one regard one’s own knee-jerk preferences as sound social policy rather than moralizing. In today’s post-morality world, vestigal aversions to prostitution, polygamy and incest have to be justified with strained public policy arguments.

If erotic zoos are bad, it is not because, as critics contend, it is “animal rape,” any more than prohibitions on intercourse with human remains can be justified by the “non-consent” of the corpse. Requiring two-sided consent in zoophilia situations privileges the person/person intercourse model in a way which is neither neutral nor value-free.

Usually it is harder to roll back new social rights than to extend them – the “non-retrogression principle.” I’d be interested to see if the zoophiles mount a challenge based on European human rights law, and how it fares. Berlin may find it is closing the barn door after the animals have escaped.

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