Ohio has moved one step closer to outlawing bestiality after a bill banning sexual abuse of animals passed the state legislature.
It is currently legal to have sex with animals in nine US states, plus Washington DC.
John Kasich, Ohio’s governor, will now decide whether to sign the bill, which also prohibits the sale of animals for sex.
The bill is the result of a lengthy campaign by the Humane Society of the United States, an animal welfare charity which is aiming to ban bestiality nationwide.
“The passage of animal sexual abuse legislation is a great victory for the animals of Ohio,” said Leighann Lassiter, animal cruelty policy director at the Humane Society.
Lassiter and the bill’s sponsors, Ohio senators Jim Hughes and Jay Hottinger, have stated that animal abuse can often be a precursor to the abuse of children.
“This legislation will give law enforcement and prosecutors the ability to identify potentially dangerous sexual predators who may also be abusing children in their community,” Lassiter said.
Once Kasich receives the bill he will have 10 days to sign it into law or veto the legislation.
If he chooses to do neither, the bill will pass into law by default.
The bill prohibits a person from “sexual conduct” with an animal, but also targets what Lassiter described as “organized sex rings”.
“There are people out there who train animals for sex,” she said. “You can give them your dog and they will train your dog to have sex with a human and send it back to you. And they get paid for it.
“It is a very, very seedy world when it comes to animal sexual abuse and it is extremely common.”
States where bestiality is illegal do have animal cruelty laws, Lassiter said, but these are often inadequate when it comes to people sexually abusing animals. A person sexually abusing an animal might only be prosecuted if the animal is injured, while livestock or wild animals may be exempt from existing law.
“We’ve got cases of people grabbing birds and having sex with birds. And killing the birds. It is really really disturbing,” Lassiter said.
People have advertised animals for sex on Craigslist and on specific bestiality websites, actions which are also not covered under some states’ existing cruelty laws.
Lassiter said some states are lacking specific bestiality laws because animal sex abuse was covered under historic laws that also banned gay sex. In some cases when those laws were repealed bestiality was not reintroduced as an offense.
Bestiality is currently legal in Vermont, Texas, West Virginia, Kentucky, Nevada, Hawaii, Wyoming, New Mexico and Ohio, and in Washington DC.
The Humane Society is aiming to introduce legislation banning the practice in the first five of those states in 2017.