CARL HIAASEN: Strange doings down on the farm

From the Miami Herald

Sometimes it's not easy to admit that you live in Florida.

Last week, our state Senate boldly took the first step toward making it illegal for a person to have intimate relations with an animal.

Although such a law might thin the dating pool in certain counties, it should ultimately serve to protect household pets and domestic livestock, which evidently are at far greater risk than most of us had imagined.

The cry for justice first arose from the small Panhandle community of Mossy Head, where in 2006 a 48-year-old man was suspected of abducting a neighbor family's pet goat and accidentally strangling it with its collar during a sex act.

I wish I were making this up, but the story is true. The poor goat's name was Meg.

After outraged citizens demanded that the suspect be arrested and locked up, local authorities were alarmed to discover that Florida was one of only 16 states that had no laws against bestiality.

While our moldy statute books still prohibit ''unnatural and lascivious acts'' between consenting adults, there's apparently nothing you cannot do with a four-legged partner.

More unwanted publicity came to Mossy Head when a local entrepreneur began selling T-shirts that said, ''Baaa Means No!'' Residents demanded that the suspected goat rapist be charged at least with animal cruelty, but DNA samples collected from the crime scene proved inconclusive.

Shortly after the fatal encounter with Meg, the same man was arrested while trying to sneak off with another goat. This time he was sentenced to 364 days for theft.

Enter Sen. Nan Rich, a Sunrise Democrat and longtime advocate for animal rights. Soon after the bizarre abductions in Mossy Head, she set out to write a law imposing tough criminal penalties on those who seek out animal companionship with carnal intent.

Although the bill died in the 2008 legislative session, this year it has a better chance of passing. A Senate agricultural committee has approved a version that would make bestiality a third-degree felony, punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

However, the discussion among lawmakers of this rather delicate topic already has provided a few uncomfortable moments.

As Rich's bill was being amended to make sure that some common animal-husbandry practices were exempt, Sen. Larcenia Bullard of Miami spoke up in puzzlement.

''People are taking these animals as their husbands? What's husbandry?'' she inquired.

The committee chairman, Sen. Charlie Dean of Citrus County, patiently explained that animal husbandry was a term used for the rearing and care of domestic animals.

Still, Bullard appeared confused.

''So that maybe was the reason the lady was so upset about that monkey?'' she asked, an apparent reference to the recent incident in which a pet chimpanzee was shot by Connecticut police after it went berserk and mauled a visitor.

Bullard has taken some ribbing about her loopy comments, but in fairness she represents a big-city district in which neither goats nor chimps often make an appearance. (Miami does have a scattered population of chickens, which the proposed law would presumably protect from human sexual advances.)

Given the many urgent matters confronting the Legislature, it's easy to make light of the bestiality deliberations; lots of Internet correspondents have been chiding lawmakers for wasting time on such a silly subject.

Yet Rich asserts it's anything but silly, citing ``a tremendous correlation between sexually deviant behavior and crimes against children and crimes against animals.''

I'm not familiar with those statistics, but it's safe to assume that anyone with a burning sexual passion for farm critters has insurmountable psychological problems, and would not be a welcomed presence in most neighborhoods.

As fervently as we might hope otherwise, the goat-sex attack in Mossy Head wasn't an isolated incident. Rich says other disturbing acts against animals have been reported throughout the state, including the molestation of a horse in the Keys and of a seeing-eye dog in Tallahassee.

The latter case involved a 29-year-old blind man who four years ago was charged with ''breach of the peace'' after admitting to police that he had sex on numerous occasions with a yellow Labrador named Lucky, his guide dog.

You needn't be an animal lover to be left aghast by such accounts. Sure, we all knew Florida was crawling with sickos -- but boinking a seeing-eye dog?

OK, Sen. Rich, you win. We definitely need a law.

And a drink.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/columnists/carl-hiaasen/story/948715.html

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	Senator Rich Addressing Seniors at the Daniel Canter Senior Center
	Nan Rich with Gradutes of Weston University
	Senator Rich with the Final Graduting Class of Weston University 2010

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