Monkey Suit

It all started with a really sad story. 

Dave Sabo, who once owned of a bunch of performing chimpanzees passed away.  At the time of his death, Sabo had only one chimp left, an animal named Tommy, that he had raised from infancy.  Since Sabo apparently had no heirs, and was living at the Circle L Trailer Park in Gloversville, New York, at the time of his death, Tommy became the property of Circle L.

A lawyer named Steven Wise, after learning that Tommy was living in a tiny cage inside a dark warehouse, decided to sue Circle L on Tommy’s behalf.  Wise and a group that calls itself the Nonhuman Rights Project filed suit in a state court naming Tommy as the plaintiff.

I have no argument against requiring owners to provide appropriate food and housing for their animals, but allowing a non-human to file suit is something else entirely.

The tactic had been tried before, but not successfully.  In October 2011, despite Wise’s objections, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) filed a lawsuit on behalf of five Orcas at SeaWorld San Diego and SeaWorld Orlando, accusing the theme park of violating the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery. The suit was dismissed by Judge Jeffrey Miller of the U.S. District Court for Southern California, who wrote in his ruling that “the only reasonable interpretation of the 13th Amendment’s plain language is that it applies to persons, and not to nonpersons such as orcas.”

It’s been a long hard road, and many would argue that we are not there yet,  but in the last century and a half in the US we have gone from Africans being property to having an African-American as President of the United States. 

I shudder to think what the consequences might be should the courts decide that animals have the same rights as humans.

On the other hand, a Chimp as president couldn’t be much worse.