Founding Father's attitude about homosexuality

[Upchurch]

In all the hooplah about the Supreme Court ruling, I heard someone on the radio say (approxiamtely), "The Supreme Court has now provided a constitutional right to a behavior that the constitutional framers wouldn't have approved of"

What was the founding father's attitude towards homosexuality? We know that not all of them were Christians, being deists instead. Is there any record of their opinions?

[Nyarlathotep]

I don't know if there is any record of their opinion of homosexuality specifically. I would maintain that their opinion isn't relevant, though. The Founding fathers lived in a different time with different morals. Many of the founding fathers approved of slavery, I don't think anyone with half a brain would use that as an argument for bringing back slavery, so I don't see how their disaproval of homosexuality (if such exists) would be an argument against homosexuality.

[SteveW]

In looking at history, I think homosexuality was more accepted back then than now (religious nuts aside). I give as an example of a letter from the Duchess of Orleans in 1698 saying that in England "nothing is more ordinary in England than this vice."

And how does one know what the Founding Fathers would or would not approve of? They certainly were not a collection of fundies, and reading the autobiography of Franklin, proves he was not a prude.

The comment was certainly made by someone who is clueless about history or the tenets of what this country is founded upon.

[Dancing David]

Well, we had a lot of Puritans too.

The founding father also thought that the common people shouldn't be allowed to vote. The Senate was set up the way it was to keep the ignorant voters under control, same for the electoral college.

Good question, have never heard it discussed.

[Brown]

Here's what Justice Kennedy had to say (although he did not address the precise issue that is the subject of this thread) [citations omitted]:At the outset it should be noted that there is no long-standing history in this country of laws directed at homosexual conduct as a distinct matter. Beginning in colonial times there were prohibitions of sodomy derived from the English criminal laws passed in the first instance by the Reformation Parliament of 1533. The English prohibition was understood to include relations between men and women as well as relations between men and men. Nineteenth-century commentators similarly read American sodomy, buggery, and crime-against-nature statutes as criminalizing certain relations between men and women and between men and men. The absence of legal prohibitions focusing on homosexual conduct may be explained in part by noting that according to some scholars the concept of the homosexual as a distinct category of person did not emerge until the late 19th century. Thus early American sodomy laws were not directed at homosexuals as such but instead sought to prohibit non-procreative sexual activity more generally. This does not suggest approval of homosexual conduct. It does tend to show that this particular form of conduct was not thought of as a separate category from like conduct between heterosexual persons.This is just an excerpt of the history discussion in the majority opinion.

[Ove]

Thus early American sodomy laws were not directed at homosexuals as such but instead sought to prohibit non-procreative sexual activity more generally.

Which adds up when you consider that the church has tried since the fall of the roman empire to make sex a matter for reproduction only. Something that should be dealt with in a clinical matter and NOT be enjoyed at all (like they said in the old Victorian days to women: Close your eyes and think of ENGLAND :D ).

Recently there was a wonderful programme on Discovery where ex Monty Python Terry Jones told the story of sex through ages. If you study the subject it becomes clear that the church has allways considered sex a pagan thing and tried to fight it (with more but mostly less success). Then it is fairly obvious that sodomy, which is purely for pleasure, is a strict no-no regardless of sex.