Have Americans Gone Mad Bananas over a Gorilla?

Christian leaders are weighing in on the fallout over the Cincinnati Zoo's decision to shoot and kill an endangered silverback gorilla in order to protect the life of a young child who fell into its enclosure.

The incident has sparked a fierce debate on social media about the zoo's actions and how much responsibility rests with the boy's parents.

More than 380,000 people signed a petition on Change.org proclaiming, "We the undersigned actively encourage an investigation of the child's home environment in the interests of protecting the child and his siblings from further incidents of parental negligence that may result in serious bodily harm or even death."

Pastor Perry Noble, senior pastor at NewSpring Church in South Carolina, said their reaction to the situation has been outrageously hypocritical.

"It was very clear in this situation that a human life was at stake and when you consider that life against the feelings of some people who most likely never even saw the gorilla, putting the gorilla down, though tragic, was absolutely the right call," wrote Noble wrote in his latest blog post called "Americans Have Officially Lost Our Freakin' Minds!" 

He asks if the same people who signed the petition demanding the boy's parents be investigated have been equally bothered by the Christians being beheaded or tortured in the Middle East or by the practices of Planned Parenthood and abortion doctors like Kermitt Gosnell. 

"I feel bad for the gorilla," Noble writes, "but I would argue that human life simply has more value."

Police are now investigating the family but at least one criminal law expert said proving negligence or child endangerment would be difficult. Such a charge usually involves leaving a child alone for an extended period of time - not a case of a child briefly wandering off.

"The mother was standing next to a zoo exhibit and lost track of her child for perhaps a minute or so," Ohio State University criminal law professor Ric Simmons said. "That has happened to almost every parent in the world in a public place."