A controversial amendment to Spain’s Penal Code is causing fury among legal and animal rights experts, who assert that the alterations to the law’s text will decriminalize bestiality.
Article 337 previously read that it was illegal to “subject [animals] to sexual exploitation.” The new amendment removes this text and instead states that “acts of a sexual nature” are criminal if the animal is injured to the point of “requir[ing] veterinary treatment to the restoration of his health.”
Spain’s left-wing government insisted that the change would not legalize bestiality, referring to such accusations as a “hoax.” Supporters argue that bestiality was never formally outlawed in the country, claiming that the law change “expands protections.” However, much of the media, including many considered left-leaning, have charged that if expanded sexual protections for animals were the aim, the law’s new text does not reflect that and, therefore, should be clarified.
“Surely such a clarification would not be needed if the Animal Welfare Law was an expansion of protection for animals—and surely it would not have made the odd specification that only acts which cause harm requiring treatment by a veterinarian if the intent was to criminalize all such acts,” Jonathon Van Maren, writing for LifeSite News noted. “A blanket ban, after all, can be worded quite simply. Spain’s leftist government, it appears, chose not to do so—and legal experts and animal rights experts agree.”
Poland’s Minister of Justice, Zbigniew Ziobro, decried what he called “the leftist virus,” saying on Twitter that “Leftism is the plague of the 21st century. The Spaniards allowed children to change sex on demand. Now they legalize bestiality.”
Biblically, we know that God has expressly prohibited mankind from committing sexual acts on animals.
Leviticus 18:23 states, “Neither shalt thou lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith: neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down thereto: it is confusion” (also see: Exodus 22:19, Lev. 20:15-16, Deut. 27:21).
The original Hebrew word in the above verse, translated as “confusion,” means a perversion and/or violation of God’s created order.
Few would publicly argue that bestiality is morally acceptable. However, under a deceptive cloak of animal rights, Spain’s government is legalizing the perversion and abuse of God’s creatures. It is a far stretch to claim that this was done unintentionally.
Proverbs 12:10 states, “A righteous man regardeth [cares for] the life of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.” As Biblical commentator, Adam Clarke, discussing this verse in the 1800s, observed, “The wicked, influenced by Satan, can show no other disposition than what is in their master, it is a cloak which they use to cover purposes of cruelty.”
