Tag Archives: Puritans

Gay History – March 1656: Puritan Boys Gone Wild!

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March 1:
1642: Boys Will Be Boys

In March of 1642 a Plymouth Colony Court heard a case brought against Edward Michell and Edward Preston for “lewd & sodomitical practices tending to sodomy.” The precise wording was important: sodomy itself was punishable by death, but practices which fell short of sodomy itself (which required proof of penetration and emission), were deemed merely “sodomitical” or sodomy-like. According to surviving records:

Edward Michell, for his lewd & sodomitical practices tending to sodomy with Edward Preston, and other lewd carriages with Lydia Hatch, is censured to be presently whipped at Plymouth, at the public place, and once more at Bamestable, in convenient time, in the presence of Mr. Freeman and the committees of the said town.
Edward Preston, for his lewd practices tending to sodomy with Edward Michell, and pressing John Keene thereunto (if he would have yielded), is also censured [sentenced] to be forthwith whipped at Plymouth, and once more at Bamestable (when Edward Michell is whipped), in the presence of Mr. Freeman & the committees of the same town.
John Keene, because he resisted the temptation, & used means to discover it, is appointed to stand by whilst Michell and Preston are whipped, though in some thing he was faulty.

1656: Onan You Don’t. Not In New Haven

New Haven Colony legislation was unique in the English-speaking world for mandating the death penalty for women as well as men for acts “against nature,” as well as for masturbation and anal sex among heterosexual couples. The act read as follows:

If any man lyeth with mankinde, as a man lyeth with a woman, both of them have Committed abomination, they both shall surely be put to death. Levit. 20. 13. And if any woman change the naturall use, into that which is against nature, as Rom. 1. 26. she shall be liable to the same Sentence, and punishment, or If any person, or persons, shall Commit any other kinde of unnaturall and shamefull filthines, called in Scripture the going after strange flesh, or other flesh then God alloweth, by canall knowledge of another vessel then God in nature hath appointed to becomp one flesh, whether it be by abusing the contrary part of a grown woman, or Child of either sex, or unripe vessel of a Girle, wherein the naturall use of the woman is left, which God hath ordained for the propagation of posterity, and Sodomiticall filthinesse (tending to the destruction of the race of mankind) is committed by a kind of Rape, nature being forced, though the will were inticed, every such person shall be put to death. Or if any man shall act upon himself, and in the sight of others spill his owne seed, by example, or counsel, or both, corrupting or tempting others to doe the like, which tends to the sin of Sodomy, if it be not one kind of it; or shall defile, or corrupt himself and others, by any kind of sinfull filthinesse, he shall be punished according to the nature of the offence; or if the case considered with the aggravating circumstances, shall according to the mind of God revealed in his word require it, he shall be put to death, as the Court of Magistrates shall determine.

New Haven Colony also applied the death penalty for adultery. This law remained in effect for the next ten years, until 1665 when New Haven Colony joined Connecticut and came under Connecticut law, which specified the death penalty for “man lying with man” only.

Gay History – August, 1673: Plymouth Colony Convicts Two Men Of “Spending their seed one upon another”

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On August 6, 1673 Plymouth Colony convicted two men of “Lewd Behavior and Unclean Carriage”. 

While not directly labeled in the records as a case of sodomy, it is clearly an act of homosexual behavior.

From the official record:

John Allexander & Thomas Roberts were both examined and found guilty of lewd behavior and unclean carriage one with another, by often spending their seed one upon another, which was proved both by witness & their own confession; the said Allexander [was] found to have been formerly notoriously guilty that way, and seeking to allure others thereunto. The said John Allexander was therefore censured [sentenced] by the Court to be severely whipped, and burnt in the shoulder with a hot iron, and to be perpetually banished [from] the government [territory] of New Plymouth, and if he be at any time found within the same, to be whipped out again by the appointment [order] of the next justice, etc., and so as oft as he shall be found within this government. Which penalty was accordingly inflicted.

Thomas Roberts was censured to be severely whipped, and to return to his master, Mr. Atwood, and serve out his time with him, but to be disabled hereby to enjoy any lands within this government, except he manifest better desert.

Allexander and Roberts, were two men with a long history of sodomy in Plymouth and were spared capital punishment. Allexander, a property owning man, and Roberts, an indentured servant, not only violated sexual morals, but also transgressed class distinctions .

Their punishment, banishment for Allexander and the denial of future land ownership for Roberts, was approximately the same as was cast upon those who participated in illicit sexual acts between men and women.

Gay & Lesbian History: December 5 -The 1600’s: Irish Bishop Busted for Buggery and the Lusty Lesbians of The New World

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lusty-lesbians

1640 – The good bishop of Waterford and Lismore of the Church of Ireland Bishop John Atherton was one of the loudest and most anti-gay proponents for a new law making homosexuality a capital crime.  After the laws passage Bishop Atherton himself was accused of buggery with a man, John Childe, his steward and  proctor. They were tried under a law that Atherton himself had helped to institute. They were both condemned to death, and Atherton was executed in Stephen’s Green, Dublin. Reportedly, he confessed to the crime immediately before his execution, although he had proclaimed his innocence before that  Atherton became the second person to be hanged under his own law. Some things never change.

1642 – The Essex County Court in Salem, Massachusetts recorded the following: “Elizabeth Johnson, servant to Mr. Jos. Yonge, to be severely whipped and fined 5 li. (pounds) for unseemly practices betwixt her and another maid; for stubbornness to her mistress answering rudely and unmannerly, and also for stopping her ears with her hands when the Word of God was read…” This brief mention of “unseemly practices” is believed to be the first recorded legal prosecution of lesbians in America

#ShitPatRobertsonSays: Gays Are Destroying What The Pilgrims Worked So Hard For – Video

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Actually, the Pilgrims were bloodthirsty totalitarian religious zealots who just a few decades after landing at Plymouth were hanging their own as witches.

Pat Robertson.

#StillNotDead  #JerryFalwell MissesYou #HellTableForOne

Craigslist Gelded! – Craigslist Buckles Under Pressure, Removes "Adult Services" Section From It’s Website

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Craigslist has given up fighting to keep up it’s “Adult Services” section after it had been faced with a letter from 17 state attorneys general demanding it immediately shut down its adult services listing.

Craigslist’s “Adult Services” section carried ads for everything from personal massages to a night’s companionship, which critics say veered into prostitution and jailhouse suicide last month of a former medical student who was awaiting trial in the killing of a masseuse he met through Craigslist. But in an intersecting counter-point if Philip Markoff the former medical student who was accused of killing a masseuse he met through Craigslist had gone through another different underground venue the police would have never caught him because they used the messages sent through Craigslist to catch Markoff.

Driving sex work underground is exactly what makes it dangerous. Sex workers in legal brothels do not have to worry about client abuse or persecution by law enforcement. So now 17 attorneys generals who will get to crow how they “saved the children” when they make their bid to run for higher office have actually made it harder and the police crack down on crimes that happen to sex workers and people who use them.

According the AIM Group, Craigslist’s adult services section accounts for 30 percent of its overall revenue — a projected $36.6 million in 2010 out of $122 million. More than half the company’s revenue comes from recruitment advertising and about 17 percent (almost $21 million) comes from apartment ads in New York City, the AIM

Something tells me there’s going to be a huge spike in ads in the ‘therapeutic’ services offered section.