Appeals court upholds Virginia’s ban on bestiality

(AP)  The Court of Appeals of Virginia has upheld a state law banning sex with an animal.

The court on Jan. 15 affirmed the 2017 conviction of Arthur Anderson Warren, who used his cellphone to record video of encounters he had with a woman and her dog, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.

A search warrant was obtained after Warren asked a deputy if “bestiality-type stuff” was legal and described the videos.

Warren’s appeal cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s Lawrence v. Texas decision against that state’s law criminalizing same-sex sodomy in arguing that the images showed the constitutionally protected “private sexual conduct of consenting individuals.” But the judges ruled that the dog was not a consenting adult and that Virginia has a legitimate interest in preventing cruelty to animals.