U.S. Senate legalises sex with animals

THE United States Senate yesterday approved a defence authorisation bill legalising sodomy with humans and sex with animals or bestiality. 

Only a week ago, Nigeria’s Senate passed a bill banning same-sex marriages and recommended a 14-year sentence for anyone convicted of homosexuality, defying a threat from Britain and the United States to withhold aid from nations violating gay rights.

But voting 93-7, the United States Senate not only repealed the military law on sodomy, it also repealed the military ban on sex with animals-or bestiality.

On November 15, the Senate Armed Services Committee was said to have unanimously approved S. 1867, the National Defence Authorisation Act, which includes a provision to repeal Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). 

Article 125 of the UCMJ is said to have made it illegal to engage in sodomy with humans and sex with animals. Specifically, it states: 

(a) Any person subject to this chapter who engages in unnatural carnal copulation with another person of the same or opposite sex or with an animal is guilty of sodomy. Penetration, however, slight, is sufficient to complete the offence. 

(b) Any person found guilty of sodomy shall be punished as a court-martial may direct. 

Expectedly, reactions have continued to trail the decision by the United States’ lawmakers in the country and other parts of the world, including Nigeria. 

In the United Sates, Family Research Council President, Tony Perkins, said the effort to remove sodomy from military law stems from liberal Senate Democrats' and President Obama’s support for removing the military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy.

‘It’s all about using the military to advance this administration’s radical social agenda,’ Perkins told CNSNews.com. ‘Not only did they overturn ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ but they had another problem, and that is, under military law sodomy is illegal, just as adultery is illegal, so they had to remove that prohibition against sodomy.’ Perkins said removing the bestiality provision may have been intentional-or just ‘collateral damage.’

Well, whether it was inadvertent or not, they have also taken out the provision against bestiality,’ he said. ‘So now, under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), there’s nothing there to prosecute bestiality.’
 

Former United States Army Col. Bob Maginnis also reportedly said some military lawyers have indicated that bestiality may be prosecutable under another section of the military code of justice – the ‘catch-all’ Article 134 for offences against ‘good military order and discipline.’

But don't count on that, he said. ‘If we have a soldier who engages in sodomy with an animal, whether a government animal or a non-government animal, is it, in fact, a chargeable offence under the Uniform Code? I think that’s in question,’ Maginnis was quoted as saying. 

‘When the reader stops laughing, the reader needs to ask the question whether or not this is in the best interests of the government, in the best interests of the military and the best interests of the country? I think not,’ he said. 

He added: ‘Soldiers, unfortunately, like it or not, have engaged in this type of behavior in the past. Will they in the future, if they remove this statute? I don’t know.’

Perkins said there was no attempt to remove the UCMJ repeal provision from the bill, which Perkins had expected the Senate to approve.

Now that it has passed, however, the Senate version will have to go to a conference committee, and Perkins predicts there will be several sticking points with the House.

‘The House in their version of the defence authorisation, reinforced the Defence of Marriage Act, saying that there is a military DOMA as well, prohibiting same-sex marriage on military bases. This is something the Department of Defence is pushing for,’ he said. 

‘And now this is an added concern, that sodomy has been removed, and as we have discovered, that bestiality-the prohibition against it-has been removed from the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So yes, the House will have problems with this bill,’ he stated.

In Nigeria’s anti-gay bill, anyone who aids or ‘abets’ same-sex unions faces 10 years in prison, a provision that is believed to be targeted at rights groups. 

The bill, passed last Tuesday, comes nearly a month after British Prime Minister, David Cameron, threatened to withhold aid from nations violating gays rights, sparking outrage in Africa where leaders interpreted it as ‘colonial’ display of power.

Homosexuality is illegal in most African countries based on remnants of sodomy laws introduced during the British colonial era and perpetuated by cultural beliefs.

In Nigeria, the anti-gay bill has been widely applauded, while the sex with animals has been condemned. The Catholic Bishop of Jalingo Diocese, Taraba State, Most Rev Dr Charles Hammawa, said it ‘is human insanity; it is unacceptable, that bill is improper. It is strange and outrageous. This is the same society that condemns crime and bad leadership. It is a pity. 

‘I don’t know what the world is turning into. The return to God is necessary. It is very sad news to hear. I pray Nigeria doesn’t copy such.’

For Pastor Wale Adefarasin, General Overseer of the Guiding Light Assembly, Lagos, he could not imagine that anyone or country would think of such a law. ‘Are you serious?’ he retorted, adding, ‘My comment is that I dey laugh.’  

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