It was God's law that influenced the settlers and was prevalent in colonial America.
The following is a brief tour of US history, which will demonstrate that sodomy laws were
a regular part of society, and they were based on the Bible.
In South Carolina, the English colony specifically cites the Buggery Statute of 1533 as a basis
for the South Carolina law. In other words, they were subject to the death penalty.
Henry VIII enacted the first English statute against homosexuality in 1533.
This law made it a capital felony for any person to commit the detestable and abominable
vice of buggery with mankind or beast. The law remained unchanged from 1563 to 1861,
just about 300 years.
The laws of the colony of Virginia enacted in 1612 says in section 9,
No man shall commit the horrible and detestable sins of sodomy upon pain of death.
The Lord Baltimore of Maryland received a charter to establish laws as long as they
were agreeable and not contrary to the laws of England. In 1632, England had the abominable
act of buggery listed as a crime worthy of death. Anyone guilty of one of the capital
offenses on this list were liable to death, drawn up by the Plymouth County in 1636.
These included treason, murder, witchcraft, arson, sodomy, rape, buggery, and adultery.
The Massachusetts Bay Colony identified sodomy as one of 12 capital crimes in 1641.
Section 8 of its law stated, If any man lieth with mankind as he lieth with a woman, both
of them have committed abomination. They both shall surely be put to death.
The Blue Laws of Connecticut enacted in 1647 states the following in section 7,
If any man lieth with mankind as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed
abomination. They both shall surely be put to death.
The New Haven Law of 1655 stated, If any man lie with mankind as he lieth with a woman,
both of them have committed abomination. They both shall surely be put to death.
Leviticus 2013 is listed as a citation in this law.
The law continues, And if any woman change the natural use into that which is against
nature, as Romans 1 26, she shall be liable to the same sentence and punishment.
The colony of New Jersey enacted this law in 1668. It says, If any man lieth with mankind
as he lieth with a woman, they both shall be put to death.
The Preamble to the Connecticut Laws of 1672 stated the following,
The serious consideration of the necessity of the establishment of wholesome laws,
for the regulating of each body politic, hath inclined us mainly in obedience unto
Jehovah the great Lawgiver, who hath been pleased to set down a divine platform,
not only of the moral, but also of judicial laws, suitable for the people of Israel.
The following appeared in the first published laws of Rhode Island in 1719,
and be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, that whosoever shall perpetrate and commit
the detestable and abominable crimes of sodomy or buggery, and be thereof legally convicted,
shall suffer the pains of death, as in cases of felony with benefit of clergy.
According to homosexuals and the death penalty in colonial America, in 1776,
male homosexuals in the original thirteen colonies were universally subject to the death penalty.
In 1800, the Virginia legislature reduced the penalty for sodomy.
A new statute set a penalty of one to ten years imprisonment for free persons who commit the act,
either as principle or as an accessory.
An 1807 Indiana Territory law stated the following,
Sodomy with man or beast shall be fined from fifty to five hundred dollars,
whipped from one to five hundred lashes, imprisoned from one to five years,
rendered infamous and shall neither give evidence or hold any office.
In 1838, Arkansas instituted the first statute against homosexual activity with a provision which read,
Every person convicted of sodomy or buggery will be imprisoned in the state penitentiary
for not less than five years nor more than twenty-one years.
Florida's first specific sodomy law was enacted in 1868 and made sodomy a felony.
The law stated,
Whosoever commits the abominable and detestable crime against nature,
either with mankind or with beast,
shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison not exceeding twenty years.
You know, I refer to homosexual marriage as sodomy-based marriage.
This is a marriage, pseudo-marriage, it's counterfeit marriage, fake marriage,
not the real thing, it's nagahide marriage,
and it is rooted in the act of sodomy, which was a felony offense
everywhere in the United States of America.
Everywhere in the United States, it was a felony offense, a capital offense in a lot of places,
until 1962, then Illinois, I believe, got rid of their sodomy statute.
It was still a felony offense in the other forty-nine states until 1972,
and then finally the sexual revolution began to crumble,
erode the pillars of American morality,
and now you talk about preserving public policies against this behavior,
you get tagged as a homophobic bigot for advocating the moral position
that all of America took for virtually all of our history.
Most Americans are repelled by the mere notion of homosexuality.
The CBS News survey shows that two out of three Americans
look upon homosexuals with disgust, discomfort, or fear.
One out of ten says hatred.
A vast majority believe that homosexuality is an illness.
Only ten percent say it is a crime, and yet, and here's the paradox,
the majority of Americans favor legal punishment,
even for homosexual acts performed in private between consenting adults.
The homosexual, bitterly aware of his rejection, responds by going underground.
They frequent their own clubs and bars and coffee houses
where they can act out in the fashion that they want to.
Homosexuality is, in fact, a mental illness which has reached epidemiological proportions.
The CBS News public opinion survey indicates that sentiment is against permitting homosexual relationships
between consenting adults without legal punishment.
The Lawrence v. Texas case prevented state governments from enacting new sodomy laws
and effectively rendered such laws that were already on the books as unenforceable.
The court claimed that banning sodomy furthered no legitimate state interest
and represented a, quote, intrusion into the personal and private life of the individual.
In 2015, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the right to marry should be extended to homosexuals.
The 5-4 decision altered the legal definition of marriage
and was widely regarded as a victory for progressive identity politics.
Following the decision, all 50 states were mandated to issue homosexual marriage licenses,
making such documents just as legally binding as those associated with heterosexual couples.
The last decade has been full of LGBTQ milestones from gay marriage to trans rights
to a rainbow wave across state and local governments.
Brooke Sapelsa, editorial director of NBC Out, is with me now.
I think the pace in which we've seen political LGBTQ representation has been, I mean, the past 10 years,
has been probably more so than we've had for the previous five decades.
I think in order to understand the massive impact that the 2015 landmark ruling had,
you have to understand where we were at the beginning of the decade.
On January 1, 2010, only five states had legalized same-sex marriage,
and more than two dozen had explicit bans on gay marriage.
We're required to do our part to stand up, change the law, the policies,
that for too long have denied people of equality, stripped them of their dignity, put them in harm's way.
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