Jeremy Herb
The Hill
December 10, 2011
As the final Defense authorization bill gets hammered out in conference committee, one surprising issue is riling both social conservatives and animal rights activists: the repeal of a ban on sodomy and bestiality.
The Senate bill, which was passed last week, removed an article from the Uniform Code of Military Justice stating “unnatural carnal copulation with another person of the same or opposite sex or with an animal is guilty of sodomy.”
But the article is still included in the House bill, and House Republicans want it to remain in the final bill.
News of the bestiality repeal has sparked conservative groups like the Family Research Council to warn of a “campaign to radicalize the country from the Pentagon out,” even if the intent to repeal bestiality wasn’t there. The group likened the repeal to last year’s end of the military’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” rule on gays serving openly in the military.
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