My brother's keeper or my keeper's brother?

It seems that at least some legislators in Spain don’t understand the old joke about the ape that escaped from a zoo. When captured, the ape had the Bible in one hand and Darwin’s Theory of Evolution in the other. When asked why he was reading these two books the ape replied, ‘I’m trying to figure out whether I’m my brother’s keeper or my keeper’s brother.’

Great apes should have the right to life and freedom, according to a resolution passed in the Spanish parliament, in what could become landmark legislation to enshrine human rights for chimpanzees, gorillas, orang-utans and bonobos, reported The Guardian on 26 June.

While this is still only a resolution, with cross-party supoport, aimed at preventing cruelty to apes in particular, the present Socialist government in Spain has already abolished the legal concept of 'father' and 'mother' with 'Progenitor 1' and 'Progenitor 2'.

CNA yesterday reported the reaction of one Spanish bishop.

Spanish bishop reacts to law granting rights to chimps and apes

Madrid, Jul 7, 2008 / 07:31 pm (CNA).- Bishop Jose Ignacio Munilla Aguirre of Palencia warned this week that Spain “is being used as a guinea pig for post-Marxist ideology that is characterized by its rebellion against the cultural roots of Europe, against Christian anthropology, against reason and against nature itself.”

In an article on the “Great Apes Project,” an initiative by Socialist and Green Party lawmakers granting rights to orangutans, chimpanzees and apes that the unborn are denied, the bishop warned that “Spain has become the first nation in the world to recognize three fundamental rights of man for apes: the right to life, the right to freedom and the right not to be tortured physically or psychologically.”

Read the full article here.

I wonder if Spain, the new soccer champions of Europe, will be represented next time by a team captained by an ape from Gibraltar or if the new Wimbledon Men's Single Champion, Rafael Nadal, a Spaniard, will lose the title next year to another of that species from the same place.