Doggy Style

When Reason interviewed Dave Barry a decade ago, he identified the biggest problem people have with libertarianism:

The argument was that if it wasn't illegal to have sex with dogs, naturally people would have sex with dogs. That argument always sets my teeth right on edge.

…I got a few letters, mostly pretty nice. One or two letters saying, "Here's why it wouldn't work to be a libertarian, because people will have sex with dogs." Arguments like, "Nobody would educate the kids." People say, "Of course you have to have public education because otherwise nobody would send their kids to school." And you'd have to say, "Would you not send your kids to school? Would you not educate them?" "Well, no. I would. But all those other people would be having sex with dogs."

The specter of canine love now haunts the debate over gay marriage. In a funny column for The Village Voice, Richard Goldstein informs us that he did a Lexis-Nexis search on the phrases "gay marriage" and "pets," thinking he'd find "perhaps a dozen hits, but the number exceeded the system's 1,000-citation capacity. When I narrowed the search to the past two months, nearly 500 pieces popped up. Most of them contained earnest warnings about people tying the knot with their pets. Perhaps you are among the many readers who have written to the local paper about the rough beast slouching toward Bethlehem (Pa.) to be betrothed."

Goldstein mulls the meaning of this animal obsession, then draws a couple conclusions of his own. "This speaks," he writes, "to the real meaning of my favorite Bob Dylan couplet: 'If dogs run free/Then why not we?' Like any great prophet, he was trying to warn us!"

[Hat tip: Bryan Alexander.]