The following editorial appeared Tuesday in the South King County Journal.

Congratulations to our Washington Legislature for passing a law making bestiality a felony.

Animal predators are now on notice.

It’s too bad our legislators weren’t as moved to bring the hammer down on repeat drunken drivers. Drive drunk once, twice, four times and it’s still only a misdemeanor. Lawmakers have decided drunken driving is only punishable with prison time after you’re convicted five or more times within 10 years, the threshold for making the crime a felony.

The only case we can recall in which a person died due to bestiality was the man who misbehaved with a horse in Enumclaw. The number of injuries and deaths, the property damage and broken lives caused by drunken drivers are staggering.

It’s not because we value animals more than people; it’s all because of money. There are too many drunken drivers out there, and if we convict too many repeat drunken drivers of felonies, our prisons will be overburdened and we’ll have to build more. Or so the logic of lawmakers goes.

The same goes for convicted car thieves. There are just too many of them out there, so we haul ‘em in, take them to court, then let them out to steal again. Like Kevin James Linder, who ran over Patrick Sullivan of Renton as he was trying to prevent Linder from stealing his car. Sullivan died Feb. 24, a month after Linder had been charged with car theft for the fourth time in a year.

For his earlier crimes, Linder got a total of a couple of months in prison and twice was ordered to perform 240 hours of community service (oh, sure), then released to steal again and again. No matter that he is a really bad dude – besides being a serial car thief, Linder’s numerous run-ins with the law have shown him to have “a blatant disregard for the lives and safety of the deputies and other drivers,” according to charging papers.

Patrick Sullivan got in the way this time and paid the price with his life.

The message we send to scofflaws is simple: The worse the crime, the less the consequence.

But at least our animals are safe.