HB 1658 to be revived next session

[Guest guest]

Here is a recent article regarding the bill. It like hundreds of other bills

didn't get through the process this time and is currently in law committee.

 

 

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Bill would restore Missouri law against sex with animals

By Eric Stern

Post-Dispatch Jefferson City Bureau

 

JEFFERSON CITY - Supporters of a legislative effort to ban sex with animals

say that forging ahead with a bestiality bill is worth the barbs from

late-night talk show hosts.

 

Having no law that prohibits bestiality " makes us look like some kind of

backward hillbilly state, " says the sponsor, Rep. Catherine Hanaway, R-Des

Peres.

 

Hanaway's bill was sparked by a story in the Riverfront Times, a free St.

Louis weekly, last fall about a southwest Missouri man's sexual relationship

with a horse. She said her constituents demanded that bestiality be outlawed.

 

The House Criminal Law Committee held a hearing Wednesday on the bill, which

would impose a maximum five-year prison sentence and $5,000 fine on people

convicted of having sex with animals. Hanaway said she will try to add the

proposal onto another bill during the legislative session.

 

Having sex with animals was banned in Missouri until 1977, when lawmakers

rewrote the state's sodomy laws and accidentally left out bestiality. No one

took notice until the late George Willard of Carl Junction, Mo., published a

book in 1994 about his fetish.

 

That book led to some degree of notoriety for Missouri, including jokes about

the Ozarks on " The Tonight Show. "

 

It is unknown how widespread the practice may be in Missouri.

 

At least one animal-rights group that supports the measure would rather see a

bill about selling stolen pets become law. But bestiality has resonated with

voters, stirring more letters, phone calls and e-mails from constituents than

any other issue this year, Hanaway said.

 

" We can't back away just because it's an embarrassing topic, " said Rep. Kate

Hollingsworth, D-Imperial.

 

Animal-rights organizations and conservative Christian groups don't find

anything funny about it, either.

 

" Once people get beyond the sensational aspect of this or the vulgarity, I

think most Missourians would have a very difficult time trying to rationalize

why this should be legal, " said Katherine McGowan, a Humane Society of

Missouri spokeswoman in St. Louis. " Their bodies are not made to engage in

this kind of activity. "

 

Kerry Messer of Festus, president of the Missouri Family Network, asked,

" Does there have to be a problem before we do something about this? "

 

A psychiatrist with the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to

Animals in New York said between 3 percent and 5 percent of the population

has the potential to be aroused by an animal, although very few act on it.

 

The group supports the bill. The psychiatrist, Stephanie LaFarge, said some

people she counsels believe they can have a harmless sexual relationship with

an animal, likely a horse or large dog. She said thousands of Web sites about

the topic are making more so-called zoophiles feel comfortable about their

tendencies.

 

But she said people who engage in violent sex with animals should be singled

out because their behavior can lead to violence against people.

 

" There is no consensual sex with an animal, " counters Sheila Rilenge,

executive director of the Missouri Alliance for Animal Abuse Legislation in

St. Louis. " They are unable to speak out loud about this abuse. "

 

The bill is HB1658.

 

 

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Mike Rolland

ASAIRS Administrator

Alternate email: rolland_mike

Help stop sexual abuse of animals:

http://welcome.to/legislation