An American man who beat his dog to death, thinking the pet was a "homosexual," was quickly convicted of animal cruelty this week in a Florida courtroom.
The homophobic owner, George Stephens Finley, 58, apparently became upset when his dog General Lee, a poodle-Yorkie mix, kept humping another of Finley's dogs, a male Jack Russell terrier.
"He felt that the dog was a queer-type dog and it made him angry," sheriff's Capt. Mike McQuaig said later.
After listening to her husband complain about the dogs' behavior, Finley's wife told him, "Well, then, you make them stop."
Prosecutors say that Finley grabbed a vacuum cleaner wand, beat the dog and then threw it against a tree. The animal lapsed into a coma, and a veterinarian was forced to put it to sleep.
The woman divorced Finley after the incident, reported news services, in a move that probably should have happened a long time ago.
During the court proceedings in Ocala, Fla., a veterinarian testified that the dog had been neutered, and that its behavior was not necessarily sexual at all but something that dogs often do to assert their dominance.
Nevertheless, Finley's defense attorneys made the outlandish claim that the dog's death was just an accident. The jury took only 35 minutes to determine otherwise and convicted Finley of abusing his own pet. He faces a year in prison, where his homophobic inclinations will surely be put to the test.
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