THE COPENHAGEN POST
“Scandalous” animal sex TV programme sparks new debate
The legality of bestiality has been discussed frequently in parliament, but a majority has always voted against a ban. Now the Danish People’s Party (DF) wants the issue raised in parliament again following a TV 2 programme about people who have sex with animals.
“It should be obvious that we cannot have a state of the law where people who have the urge to have sex with animals can simply break into other people’s places and rape their animals without being punished,” Marlene Harpsøe, DF’s animal welfare spokesperson, told Jyllands-Posten newspaper. “But that’s how the situation is now,” she said, referring to the programme as “a scandal”.
Harpsøe has now called on the justice minister, Lars Barfoed, to look for a majority for a complete ban on bestiality.
In 2006 DF called for a referendum on such a ban, and in May 2010, former DF member Christian H Hansen presented a motion for a resolution to forbid all forms of sex involving humans and animals.
Back then Barfoed said that the current legislation was good enough. “In my conviction, a vast majority of people dissociate themselves from sex with animals even without a ban,” he said in 2010. “A general ban would be unlikely to do much to improve or worsen the condemnation surrounding the issue.”
However, a lot has happened since those days, according to DF.
“The political parties that are against banning bestiality are claiming that it does not necessarily constitute a violation of the animals. But the animals have no way of expressing consent or dissent to having sex with a human – they’re totally defenceless, and we simply cannot accept that it’s legal to rape animals.”
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