Difference between revisions of "Sodomy law: East New Jersey, March 1683"
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This East New Jersey law remained in effect until East and West New Jersey | This East New Jersey law remained in effect until East and West New Jersey | ||
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| + | Return to [[Colonial America: The Age of Sodomitical Sin|Age of Sodomitical Sin]] index • Go to [[Buggery law: New York, 1691|next article]] | ||
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== References == | == References == | ||
| + | {{GLA}} p. 127. | ||
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{{Curated Exhibit|exhibit name and link=[[Colonial America: The Age of Sodomitical Sin|Colonial America: The Age of Sodomitical Sin]]|firstname=Jonathan Ned|lastname=Katz}} | {{Curated Exhibit|exhibit name and link=[[Colonial America: The Age of Sodomitical Sin|Colonial America: The Age of Sodomitical Sin]]|firstname=Jonathan Ned|lastname=Katz}} | ||
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Revision as of 14:43, 28 April 2008
Jonathan Ned Katz, Gay/Lesbian Almanac (NY: Harper & Row, 1983) p. 120-1.
After East New Jersey was sold to a group of proprietors most of whom were Quakers, its general assembly drew up a new legal code significantly differing from the earlier law of 1668.[1] "Sodomy" was now grouped with many other crimes, ranging from swearing to murder and treason, all to be punished according to their "nature." Since sodomy, like murder and treason, was traditionally capital, the death penalty may have been assumed, although this was not specifically stated. Tile law may have reflected a positive desire to punish sodomy less strictly, or it may have expressed some ambivalence about penalizing it by death.
A separate provision of this law specified bestiality as a capital crime, indicating that human-animal contacts were considered worse than sodomy.
The sodomy provision read:
all Offenses against God, as Cursing, Swearing, Lying, Profane talking, Drunkenness, Drinking ofHealths, obscene Words, Incest, Sodomy, Rapes, Adultery, Fornication and other uncleanness (not to be repeated), all Treasons, Misprisons, Murders, Duels, Felonies, Seditions, Mayhems, forceable Entries, and other Villainies to the Persons and Estates of the Inhabitants of this Province, and all Prizes, Stage-Plays, Games, Masques, Revels, Bullbaitings, Cock-fightings, which excite People to Rudeness, Cruelty, Looseness, and Irreligion shall be respectively discouraged and punished by the Judges and Courts of Justice in this Province, according to the nature and
kind of the said respective Offenses.
This East New Jersey law remained in effect until East and West New Jersey were united as a single royal colony in 1702.
Return to Age of Sodomitical Sin index • Go to next article
References
Jonathan Ned Katz, Gay/Lesbian Almanac (NY: Harper & Row, 1983) p. 127.
- ↑ 1683, March: East New Jersey "sodomy" law; Learning and Spicer (1758), pp. 227, 237-39.
