So for hundreds and hundreds of years, we believe the Bible is a nation, then it starts
to weaken. Then they stop putting to death, then they start just giving them life in prison.
I'll just kind of shorten, I'll give you the shortened version.
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.