Here's part of a New York Times article, covering claims that
strong enforcement of laws against homosexuality first began
about 100 years ago in America.
Interesting, but I'm not convinced. Comments?
---David
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In Changing the Law of the Land,
Six Justices Turned to Its History
July 20, 2003
By PETER EDIDIN
When the Supreme Court voted 6 to 3 last month to strike
down criminal sodomy laws, it reversed its 1986 decision in
Bowers v. Hardwick, which held that the Constitution didn't
guarantee the right to engage in "homosexual sodomy."
Both cases turned on history, not just law. In Bowers, the
majority cited evidence that in the 18th and 19th
centuries, sodomy was generally illegal in the United
States. Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, in his concurring
opinion, wrote that to affirm the right to engage in
homosexual sodomy "would be to cast aside millennia of
moral teaching."
The notion that Western society has held a consistent view
about what constitutes sodomy, and that the practice of it
by same-sex couples, in particular, deserved punishment,
was one that a group of nine historians "knowledgeable
about the history of the treatment of lesbians and gay men
in America" decided to challenge.
In a supporting brief on behalf of the petitioner in
Lawrence v. Texas, the case that was the occasion for the
court's momentous decision in June, these scholars
contended that history taught a different lesson: that the
legal prohibitions against same-sex sodomy derived from
20th-century prejudice, not the enduring attitudes of
Western civilization.
Their argument won the day. As Justice Anthony M. Kennedy
made clear in his majority opinion, "there is no
longstanding history in this country of laws directed at
homosexual conduct as a distinct matter."
Excerpts follow from the historians' brief. The full
document can be found at www.lambdalegal.org. •
...
(I snipped the rest. You can find the NY Times article
at the following URL, although you need to register.
Or I'll email the entire article offlist.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/20/weekinreview/20WORD.html?ex=1059728154&ei=1&en=1d8381765e84cd84
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