Why Should Homosexuality Concern a Society?
Public discussions concerning homosexuality are a purely recent phenomenon; it was long considered too morally abhorrent and reprehensible to openly discuss. Consider, for example, the legal works of James Wilson, a signer both of the Declaration and the Constitution and appointed by President Washington as an original Justice on the U. S. Supreme Court. Wilson was responsible for laying much of the foundation of American Jurisprudence and was co-author of America’s first legal commentaries on the Constitution. Even though state law books of the day addressed sodomy, when Wilson came to it in his legal writings, he was too disgusted with it even to mention it. He thus declared: The crime not to be named [sodomy], I pass in a total silence. 24 America’s first law book, authored by founding jurist Zephaniah Swift, communicated the popular view concerning sodomy: This crime, tho repugnant to every sentiment of decency and delicacy, is very prevalent in corrupt and debauched countries wher
