When "logic" ceases to be good.

What would you consider an animal?
The dictionaries describe the term as "a living organizm characterized by voluntary movement" (wordnet.princton.edu); "means any live or dead dog, cat, nonhuman primate, guinea pig, hamster, rabbit, or any other warmblooded animal, which is being used, or is intended for use for research, teaching, testing, experimentation, or exhibition purposes, or as a pet." (aphis.usda.gov); "1. a living organism having sensation and the power of voluntary movement and requiring for its existence oxygen and organic food. 2. pertaining to such an organism. 3. any animal organism other than a human being." (www.mercksource.com); "any member of the animal kingdom including multicellular marine organisms, worms, insects, spiders, crustaceans, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals." (http://www.mdk12.org/instruction/curriculum/science/glossary.shtml)

If you see a squirrel or a skunk that got hit by a moving car and is dead on the side of the road, is it still an animal? Is it ONLY a carcass anymore? This is the absurd question that is being debated in one Duluth, Minnesota trial where a man was arrested for having alleged sexual contact with a dead deer. (Gross.)

Bryan James Hathaway, the alleged deer donger has a lawyer who is arguing that the statute that prohibits 'crimes against sexual morality' refers to having sex with "animals"; not carcasses. He's arguing that the dead deer is no longer a deer since it is dead.

Of course, Hathaway himself said in his police interview that he saw the deer in a ditch and didn't refer to it as a "carcass" so therefore his intentions and his own perception is clear: He wanted to get it on with a deer but all the deer he called up were busy washing their antlers that Friday.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

Anderson argued: When does a turkey cease to be an animal? When it is dead? When it is wrapped in plastic packaging in the freezer? When it is served, fully cooked?
A judge should decide what the Legislature intended "animal'' to mean in the statute, he said. "And the only clear point to draw the line in that definition, I believe, is the point of death.'' Assistant District Attorney James Boughner said the court can use a dictionary to determine the meaning of the word, but it doesn't have to. "The common and ordinary meaning of a word can be found in how people actually use the word,'' Boughner wrote in his response to the motion. When a person's pet dog dies, he told Lucci, the person still refers to the dog as his or her dog, not a carcass.
"It stays a dog for some time,'' Boughner said.

Here's the rest of the article.
Sicko.