A NUMBER OF HISTORIANS filed a brief in the Lawrence sodomy case before the Supreme Court. It turns out to be false in several statements of fact, as shown by the comments following it at the History News Network site. We should expect that of leftwing historians by now. Clayton Cramer remarks on one of their claims, for example:
"Colonial sexual regulation included such non-procreative acts as masturbation, and sodomy laws applied equally to male-male, male- female, and human- animal sexual activity."The brief attempts to make the case that sodomy as a crime was entirely a Christian idea, and really a 20th century one, and in any case sodomy was considered no worse than using birth control-- the ban was part of a general ban on nonprocreative sex. Pretty implausible. How was it that the Bible-thumping Christians only managed to get their laws passed and enforced starting in the mid-20th Century, when they had lost control of the mainline churches and Victorian morality was under attack?Nope. Connecticut's 1650 Code is very explicit on this. "If any man lye with mankind as he lyeth with a woman both of them have committed abomination, they both shall surely be put to death." Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, 1:77. You can read it here at http://www.colonialct.uconn.edu/ViewPageByPageNew.cfm?ID=2226&Volume=1&Master= 1023&Letter=S&v=01&p=77&c=4
I don't know how accurate the rest of this statement is, but let's face it--historians are primarily in the business of political agendas these days, and little falsifcations are becoming the norm.
IS BUSH REALLY A CONSERVATIVE? Given the general mendacity of the historians' brief discussed above, maybe the following is wrong too:
President Bush recently signed legislation -- named after one of the gay heroes of September 11, 2001 -- allowing death benefits to be paid to the domestic partners of firefighters and police officers who die in the line of duty. Mychal Judge Police & Fire Chaplains Public Safety Officers� Benefit Act of 2002, Pub. L. No. 107-196, 116 Stat. 719 (June 24, 2002).I think Bush is snookering conservatives, including me, though. In domestic policy, what is he doing that is conservative? Tax cuts, but that's no great shakes, especially with an attempt to increase medical entitlements.
[ http://php.indiana.edu/~erasmuse/w/03.07.20a.htm ]
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