Bestiality/Zoophilia should be legal and is not inherently immoral

Thanks for the replay, ADreamOfLibert!. As usual, you provide a great debate. (I'm also a male btw.) About the forum link; you know better than that. Like you, I'm dealing with confined space. I really can't allow you to use the forum to bypass the character count, but I understand where you're coming from. Sorry! As for not responding to everything... I'm ok with that this round if you're ok with that in my sort response this round! For your previous argument and my response I am cool with us not counting missed arguments as dropped (I'm on a time crunch XP). These arguments will simply add, not subtract. Next round I suppose will be back to normal. ++ So it seems the debate has come down to this: **Whether or not non-human animals would demonstrate LACK of consent in court reliably.** The reason for my saying this is that -We agree that sex without consent is immoral, that the law should never advocate something immoral, and therefore the law should never advocate sex without consent. -We agree that if the law cannot distinguish between consent and non-consent sex, it is problematic. -My opponent says that one must prove that the animal did not consent for prosecution. Therefore, Pro has to prove the above in order to win, while I will oppose him. ++ When I said that if a dog barks some would wrongly think it happy, Pro says: "the burden would be on the state to show it was a sad bark presuming they even had a recording or eye witness to the bark. The communications I reference are not subjective projections as noted above." My opponent suggests that if one cannot prove that sex was against the animals wishes, the human would not be prosecuted. Basically, if there is a possibility that it was consensual, the humans will not be prosecuted. This admission will be the cornerstone of my debate. Animals cannot testify in court; therefore, they cannot be witness to their own rape. My opponent remarks that in order to prove that there was non-consensual sex, one would need eyewitnesses (who are presumably human and can tell whether the behavior was non-consensual) or a camera, and then would need to convince the human court that without a doubt the animal was not consensual. This means that I would be free to rape an animal as long as I don't video tape it. I can even tell people that I'm going to rape the animal. Because one could not prove that the animal did not want sex, I would walk free. Even if for some reason the perpetrator videotaped her/himself, the would have to show explicitly a "no" behavior. If an animals "says no" and the camera doesn't catch it, the perpetrator would walk for rape. Even if it does catch a "no" behavior, it would have to be a certain enough behavior to "prove" that the animal did not want sex. If a dog growls, the defendant could say there was a cat nearby. If the dog moves away, the perpetrator could say that the dog was readjusting her/himself, or that there was a toy that the dog was eyeing. My opponent points out that the behaviors are difficult to identify across species. I agree. This means that the court would have a difficult time "proving" that the animal did not consent. Additionally, a lack of response does not mean "yes." Simply not struggling does not actually imply consent. For one thing, the animal could be coerced. See the article I posted last round about the prostitute ape [1], who was trained/coerced to grind on customers. This evidence shows that unhappy animals may be coerced into sex. There is always the possibility of restraints, even if they aren't visible. Most training is done under circumstances of slavery. If a human slave were offered food for good behavior, that is coercion, even if it is less painful. The ape prostitute was undoubtedly coerced and probably made many attempts to escape the prison, but as long as she follows through during sex (even if video and expert witnesses were present, which is unlikely) no laws would be broken. Basically, under this model these horrific animals prostitution rings would be allowed. These animals are slaves who are raped, but as long as no one videotapes the animal struggling or breaks the animals' legs, the customers are free to have sex according to Pro's model [2]. After years of rape, this poor kidnapped human began to stop struggling (though this was still rape and still horrific) [3] I still have lots more to say, but I'm running out of time. I look forward to what I'm sure will be a great response from my opponent! Feel free to add the arguments you weren't able to add previously. Good luck! It's been a pleasure debating. We should do it again sometime, with a similar subject! (perhaps a few less rounds though! :P) [1]http://www.examiner.com... [2] http://pjmedia.com... [3] http://www.telegraph.co.uk...