Urf:
I cant believe the “sex with 2 men? why not a man and an animal?” argument is actually being used here.
Well, again I wonder how people can do this, But lets have a go.
The argument could have many origins, probably part of it comes from leviticus, but perhaps it has something to do with the possibility that many people find both revolting, and given their emotional reaction think that the behaviours are morally equivilent. it is a bit like being revolted by spiders and snakes and classifying them as ‘yucky’, not arthropods and reptiles.
Yucky things turn off rational thought for the most part so “why” doesnt matter, just yuckiness.
Of course yuckiness has some instinctual basis and has some learnt aspects. That is why many people eventually can eat olives, liver and tapioca despite a childhood revlusion. These are examples, not analogies. Some societies, generally prechhristian aboriginal were accepting and no problems were identified with homosexuality.
Another aspect is the common assertion that homosex is all aabout lust and lower feelings. It is directly equated with animal instinct, and some people feel it is evidence of the devolution of a moral being. If you would ‘do’ Patrick you would ‘do’ Rex.
Of course this is not ‘Catholic’ view just what you find reading around the same-sex argument and ‘extreme’ right-wing/christians sites.
So the core of the argument is emotional reflexive. But I do believe the conflation of homosexuality, zoophilia and pedastry is just people either just thinking “its all ycky” or people trying to make others think “its all yucky”
The moral difference is the mental state of the partners.
In our societies we recognise certain things must be in place before someone can give consent. Regardless of your intelligence, maturity, hand-eye co-ordination, etc, you have to be aminimum age to do some things, and that is because the law deems that regardless of any other factor, below that age you are not capable, competant or informed enough to do that.
Part of this is because we have a general understanding of the mental state of youngsters, so we have a kind of concensus view of who can do what when. However, even on reaching that age a person can be deemed unable to take decisions, low IQ, mental illness, etc.
The coming of age is recognised by the power to enter binding contracts, have sex, and be prosecuted in law.
They do this explicitly, with a signature.
With animals we do not have this. We know they think, but we have no real understanding of whether they understand rules, thir existance, their purpose and the consequences of breaking them. They do not have language to directly express in human speech their opinions, they cannot sign their name and give explicit consenr. We have no idea is they can reflect any form of human understanding.
Thus in law animals cannot give consent.
Those who think homosex and zoophilia are the same miss the core aspect of consent; adult, competant human intelligence with direct shared communications.
The fact is, iif you ask John “do you want this?” he can SAY yes, and sign a piece of paper. If you ask Res he can bark, but give him the piece of paper and he’ll ignore it or rip it up.
or that’s what I think.
