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 13 colonies were universally subject to the death penalty.