As residents of Flint, Michigan continue to suffer from their city's lead-tainted water, the Michigan Senate was focused on an entirely different issue: sodomy.
The state Senate voted to pass SB 0219 that would make animal abuse illegal in the state. It added a section that outlaws sodomy and makes it a felony punishable by 15 years in prison.
Section 158 of the bill states, "A person who commits the abominable and detestable crime against nature either with mankind or with any animal is guilty of a felony, punishable by imprisonment for not more than 15 years, or if the defendant was a sexually delinquent person at the time of the offense, a felony punishable by imprisonment for an indeterminate term, the minimum of which shall be 1 day and the maximum of which shall be life."
Michigan is one of 12 states that have existing laws against sodomy despite the 2003 ruling on Lawrence v. Texas of the U.S. Supreme Court that declared it unconstitutional and invalidated it in 13 states, according to Raw Story.
According to Michigan lawmakers, the law does not target gay people but applies to all.
The measure lumps sodomy in people with bestiality.
"While the legislature hopes to prevent cases of animal abuse, it is unclear if there is a rampant epidemic of bestiality in Michigan. A Google news search doesn't heed any results," Raw Story reported.
Anthropologist Margaret Mead studied the link between animal abuse and human abuse and concluded that animal cruelty could be a precursor to future violence.
"One of the most dangerous things that can happen to a child is to kill or torture an animal and get away with it... [as] such children, diagnosed early, could be helped instead of being allowed to embark on a long career of episodic violence and murder," she wrote in 1964.
Republican state Senator Rick Jones, who introduced the bill, urged his colleagues at the House not to try to delete the provision on sodomy as it could jeopardise the passage of the bill.
"The minute I cross that line and I start talking about the other stuff, I won't even get another hearing. It'll be done," Jones told the New Civil Rights Movement. "Nobody wants to touch it. I would rather not even bring up the topic, because I know what would happen. You'd get both sides screaming and you end up with a big fight that's not needed because it's unconstitutional."
The Michigan bill was named Logan's Law after a Siberian husky that died due to acid.
