When I joined the Toastmasters organization in 1981, I quickly learned that the topics that you should always avoid are religion, sex, and politics. As a general rule, both I and my fellow Toastmasters managed to do exactly that.
In the past week of so, a couple of news items came to my attention that relate, to a degree, to all three of those topics, so I decided to do more research on them. I can assure you, though, that you are unlikely to be offended by any of the conclusions that I’ve reached.
On July 8, a Texas man named Cirilo Castillo was arrested for the 2nd time in 3 months for having sex with a horse.. For obvious reasons, I’m not going to recreate the act here, but a recent mug shot of him will confirm the fact that he’s not exactly the brightest guy that you’ve ever met:
Strangely enough, Texas does not have any laws against bestiality, so the only crime that Castillo could be charged with is animal cruelty, and then only if the animal had been injured. Even stranger is the fact that there were 13 other states (as of July of 2010) that had no direct prohibitions against the sexual assault of an animal. For now, the sheep in Montana are safe, but their cousins in Wyoming need to be extra cautious.
A few of the states mentioned in the link above are in the “Bible belt”, which is even stranger due to the fact the Bible has numerous references condemning bestiality. Some of those references even mention the penalty of death for the offense.
I recently became aware of the fact that Tracy Arnold, a legislator in Mississippi, had introduced a bill earlier this year (The Protection of the Person Act) which would ban the creation of "a human embryo into which a nonhuman cell or a component of a nonhuman cell is introduced, so that it is uncertain whether the human embryo is a member of the species homo sapiens." In view of the fact that Mississippi has the 4th worst school system in the country, my opinion is that he should be focusing on things that are actually IMPORTANT, but he obviously would disagree. Mississippi, incidentally, has the highest obesity rate in the country (34.9%) , but he’s apparently not concerned with that issue either, and neither is Paula Deen.
Even though I sold cars for a lot of years, Tracy Arnold is definitely a guy that I would NOT buy a used car from:
Not surprisingly, he’s a member of the Mississippi Tea Party, and has received an “A” rating from the NRA for the last 8 years. He and his wife Neecy are pastors at The Vineyard church in Booneville, Mississippi.
Mississippi isn’t the only state that is concerned about animal-human hybrids. Both Arizona and Louisiana already have laws on the books, and Ohio introduced a bill last year that would have imposed penalties up to 5 years in jail and a $1,000,000 fine for the offense. Surprisingly, legislation was introduced at the Federal level in 2009 by 21 Senators (including both of the Senators from Arizona), but the bill never made it out of the Judiciary Committee.
Tracy Arnold, as well as a few other people , would be surprised to learn that research involving inserting human DNA into animals has been going on for close to 50 years, but only to find cures for diseases. For some reason, I don’t think that’s a problem.
Rather than focusing on relations between animals and humans, our legislators should be focused on correcting the laws involving relationships with other humans.
For example, if you’re not concerned about the fact that your children might wind up with six fingers on each hand, and six toes on each foot, you’ll be interested to know that 18 states have virtually no restrictions on which of your 1st cousins that you can marry.
Prior to 1962, sodomy (including certain acts between married persons) was a felony in all 50 states. Over time, state laws against sodomy gradually went away, but it wasn’t until 2003 that the remaining 14 states that still had laws on the books were forced to remove them by the United States Supreme Court. Since not everyone is happy about the recent Supreme Court ruling that voided the Defense of Marriage Act, it wouldn’t be surprising if some states tried to resurrect sodomy laws.
The purpose of laws should be to protect innocent victims, which means that the laws that SHOULD be revised are the “age of consent” laws. Throughout Canada, the age of consent is 16. In America, the age of consent ranges from 16 to 18, and in parts of Mexico, the age of consent could be as young as 12. Nineteen states in America (including most of the “Bible belt”) set 16 as the age of consent. The actual effect of the laws is that they protect an adult who is having sex with a young girl from being charged with statutory rape. The penalty for statutory rape varies by state, naturally, but virtually ALL of them (with the exception of California) impose very strict penalties for the crime - up to 100 years in prison.
I’m not sure if Jerry Lee Lewis was ever charged with statutory rape, but he DID marry his 13 year old first cousin once removed in 1957, which led to a “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” for his career.
Fortunately, the rate of births to teen mothers has continued to drop in America (to a rate of 34 per 1000 girls in the age of 15 to 19). The birth rate is lowest in New Hampshire, which has an “age of consent” of 18 and mandatory birth control training (starting in elementary school) and highest in Mississippi (are you paying attention, Representative Arnold?) , which has an age of consent of 16. Mississippi has NO requirements for its schools to teach either sex education or sexually transmitted disease education. For schools that choose to each either or both topics, they are required to stress abstinence-until-marriage.
Far too many of our state legislators seem to have a weak grip in understanding either human nature or human biology, as evidenced by the fact that Republicans in the Tennessee legislature introduced wording in a sex education bill last spring that defined kissing and holding hands as “gateways to sexual activity”.
You’ve just digested a lot of complicated information regarding a very complex topic (sex) so I’ll close out this article on a lighter note.
If you’ve ever wondered, “which came first, the chicken or the egg?”, the picture below can explain it to you:
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