Spanish Socialists: Simians are People Too!

Shortly after the Madrid bombings, the Spanish electorate put the socialists in power. They knew that they were buying their way out of that nasty war in Iraq. I wonder if they knew they were also buying this.

The Spanish Socialist Party will introduce a bill in the Congress of Deputies calling for "the immediate inclusion of (simians) in the category of persons, and that they be given the moral and legal protection that currently are only enjoyed by human beings." The PSOE's justification is that humans share 98.4% of our genes with chimpanzees, 97.7% with gorillas, and 96.4% with orangutans.

The party will announce its Great Ape Project at a press conference tomorrow. An organization with the same name is seeking a UN declaration on simian rights which would defend ape interests "the same as those of minors and the mentally handicapped of our species."

According to the Project, "Today only members of the species Homo sapiens are considered part of the community of equals. The chimpanzee, the gorilla, and the orangutan are our species's closest relatives. They possess sufficient mental faculties and emotional life to justify their inclusion in the community of equals."

To which Protein Wisdom says this:

...and 99% with mice. But then, mice aren’t quite so, y’know, powerful and nasty when you snap their little mice necks for gnawing through your cupboard and eating your Montecados.

Or shitting on the knives for that matter.

Via Little Green Footballs.