Bill Donohue comments on the controversy over Dr. Benjamin Carson:
Last week, Dr. Ben Carson defended marriage as it has been understood since time immemorial. He added, “It’s a well-established, fundamental pillar of society and no group, be they gays, be they NAMBLA, be they people who believe in bestiality—it doesn’t matter what they are—they don’t get to change the definition.” For this he has been vilified, even though he has made it clear that he wasn’t equating bestiality with homosexuality. But the attacks have not ceased.
Also last week, U.S. Supreme Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor asked attorney Ted Olson whether incest might be permitted if there were no state restrictions on marriage. No one condemned her.
Carson and Sotomayor were simply trying to find out whether those who support gay marriage recognize any limits to their redefinition of this basic social institution. This is a perfectly legitimate line of inquiry.
Moreover, it is a little late in the game for liberals to get exercised about bestiality. In 1948, Kinsey and his associates concluded that “sexual contacts between the human and animals of other species are at no point basically different from those that are involved in erotic responses to human situations.” Today, college textbooks on human sexuality speak of bestiality as nothing more than “atypical behavior.”
Princeton professor Peter Singer wants us to keep an open mind about Fred having sex with Fido. He says, “sex with animals does not always involve cruelty,” and that “mutually satisfying activities” of a sexual nature should be respected. Last month, Yale hosted a “sensitivity training” exercise where Dr. Jill McDevitt touted the merits of bestiality. Her goal is to “increase compassion for people who may engage in activities that are not what you would personally consider normal.”
Dr. Carson is a good man who was framed. It’s the sexologists and the Ivy Leaguers who need to explain themselves.
