German News Magazine Can't Marshal Any Disapproval of Bestiality

The German news magazine Der Spiegel is neutral on bestiality. German legislators have recently moved to ban the sexual perversion. At the blog Get Religion, they report the magazine turned for expertise to Michael Kiok, the chairman of the pressure group ZETA (Zoophile Engagement for Tolerance and Information).

Kiok argued the new law was unfair: “We see animals as partners and not as a means of gratification. We don’t force them to do anything.” Mr Kiok goes on to describe his relationship with an “Alsatian called Cessie” and argues that the animal butcher should be punished before the animal lover. Then the magazine wildly overestimated that perhaps five percent of Germans have this ahem, affinity:

Sexual research in the 1940s suggested that 5 to 8 percent of men and 3 to 5 percent of women engaged in zoophilia. “That would put the figure in Germany at 1.6 million but that’s definitely too high. Taking a wild guess, I’d say it’s well over 100,000,” said Kiok.

Geoconger at Get Religion is amazed at Der Spiegel's inability to cite criticism of the zoophiles:

There is a hesitancy by the German news weekly to say that this is wrong. Is that the business of a newspaper? Should the moral voice be extinguished in modern newspaper reporting? Is Herr Kiok’s argument that morality should not govern law true?

Der Spiegel appears to think so, as it has framed this story in such a way as to remove the moral element. By not providing contrary voices to the Zoophilia activists, the newspaper does not address the issue as to why this conduct should be governed by law. Popular disgust with the practices under consideration might make such arguments appear superfluous, but when Der Spiegel writes from the philosophical presupposition of antinomianism — the rejection of socially established morality — it concedes the argument to the Michael Kioks.

Under the headline "Yes, someone actually said that, " at The Deacon's Bench blog, Greg Kandra zeroed in on the fuller Kiok quote:

“It is unthinkable that any sexual act with an animal is punished without proof that the animal has come to any harm.  We see animals as partners and not as a means of gratification. We don’t force them to do anything. Animals are much easier to understand than women.”