OK, first and foremost, i should say that i read the first part of this thread, and not the rest, so if some of it seems a little "allready been there" then i apologise
The first point i feel i need to raise is the idea of consent, or lack there of in an animal. when a Human female and a Human Male come together for sexual relations, they do no begin my stating "I give you permission to have sexual intercourse with me" if your doing things right, it's a feeling, a mutual unspoken agreement, and i think most people would agree, that how it usualy goes. The Fact that and animal doesn;t turn around and say "NO" doesn't mean that they saying yes. the lack of a negative response doesn't confirm the presence of a positive one. but the fact that it is aknowledged that some animals do 'consent' (via body language and the lack of attempt at escape). wile this has been discussed here allready, i wonder how this applies to physically or mentally disabled persons. one of the many places i have worked was at a care facility for mentaly handicaped people. and i saw people whom had massive disabilities (ie impared mental ability, equal to a 10 year old) who had a girlfriend, (admittadly she wasn't particuarly impressive) his brain was damaged in one particular part that stoped him being able to talk properly, he could produce simple single words, but no sentances, in leu of those he only made a moaning grunting type noise. based on most of the opinions in this debate, how could you consider him to be capable of making the right decision in relation to his sexuality, i mean, he wasn't allowed to make a sandwich because he used too much butter all the time. how can we justify that. to that end, how can we justify NOT letting him express himself physically? he has the body of a 34 yr old man, he has the same urges, how can we deny him that right? again this argument is based on the arguments against Zoophilia.
The Arguments on diseases are vaild, while there are many diseases that crossed the species barrier, there are still some that havn't, to that, thats not to say they won't or havn't allready, we simply haven't found them yet, so with that in mind, banning zoophilia works for the health of the populus, but we can rarely justify a law based on a possibility, (ie new terrorism laws havn't gone down so well eh?).
I should probably say now that, in my opinion, if asked on the street, i would say that bestiality is disgusting, i find it inappropriate and wrong, and cannot understand the want people may have to do these things. but again, this mindset was the norm when the gay movement was starting, and now they are accepted as a normal part of the social network, i don't see that happening in this case, but you never know.
that my 2 cents....
Actually based on how much i wrote, that more like 20 bucks, sorry about the essay, when i write about these sorta things it's just straight out of my head and onto the screen, so it might be a bit allover the place, and long. apologies.
Dale.