Spain grants rights to apes

Robert Locke, who made a bet with me a few years ago (discussed here) that marriage between humans and animals would be recognized in the U.S. by the year 2020, sends this:

Spanish parliament to extend rights to apes

MADRID (Reuters)—Spain’s parliament voiced its support on Wednesday for the rights of great apes to life and freedom in what will apparently be the first time any national legislature has called for such rights for non-humans. [cont.]

Mr. Locke writes:

Animal marriage, here we come…

LA replies:

You’re definitely winning …

Mr. Locke replies:

People think I’m either this wacky extremist or that I’m kidding.

- end of initial entry -

George R. writes:

Don’t worry. You’re going to win the bet. We will not have marriages between animals and humans by 2020.

Maybe civil unions, but not marriages.

Phillip M. writes:

Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase “horse and groom.” And don’t even get me started about marriage being an “unequal yoke.” You should try being married to a heffer … talk about ploughing a lonely furrow!

That should be enough to be going on with for now…

Phillip M. writes:

I now pronounce you horse and groom. You may kiss the bridle.

I will never stop doing this.

Howard Sutherland writes:

Reading the article you link in this post, it says this Spanish initiative is under the aegis of the “Great Apes Project,” which argues that “non-human hominids” should enjoy basic rights, including to life. Interestingly, one of the project’s founders is Australian “philosopher” Peter Singer. Remember him? He’s the man who, when not arguing for the rights of animals, advocates human euthanasia, including infanticide for disabled and mentally defective babies. Glad he’s got his priorities straight. In Singer’s mind, human beings, apes, orangutans and the like are all “Great Apes,” and so carnal relations between man and monkey, while odd, are not morally objectionable. For Singer all “Great Apes” are equal, but some clearly are more equal than others. I cannot imagine Singer advocating infanticide for ape-babies!

Not surprisingly, true to the new ivy league, Princeton welcomed him with a tenured professorship in its “University Center for Human Values.” (?!)

It is very sad to see Spain hell-bent on becoming the next Holland.

LA replies:

But the existence of a “University Center for Human Values” that is devoted to such projects as euthanasia and animal rights, and, ultimately, human-ape marriage, is not as ironic as it may seem. If, as part of an effort to liberate and empower man, you make the human the highest, by removing anything higher than man, including truth, then you have destroyed the scale of values that makes the human, human. As I discussed in my article, “Multiculturalism and the Demotion of Man,” if you make man the highest thing, you debase him, because without truth everything is debased.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 26, 2008 04:59 PM | Send