Sodomy Law: Connecticut, December 1, 1642

Death for "man lying with man"

The General Court of Connecticut adopted a list of twelve capital crimes, all but the rape law based on theMassachusetts Bay Colony's Liberties of 1641.(1) The capital crimes in Connecticut were:

(1) idolatry
(2) witchcraft,
(3) blasphemy
(4) murder with malice aforethought
(5) murder through poisoning
(6) bestiality
(7) sodomy. Here referred to only as "man lying with man,"
(8) adultery
(9) rape
(10) kidnapping
(11) perjury with intent to cause a man to lose his life
(12) treason


This law was readopted in a codification of 1650, May.

 

 

References

  1. Jonathan Ned Katz, Gay/Lesbian Almanac (NY: Harper & Row, 1983), p 85, citing J. Hammond Trumbull, ed., The Public Records of the Colony Of Connecticut (Hartford: Lockwood and Brainard, 1850), vol. I, pp. 77-78; Mary Jeanne Anderson Jones, Congregational Commonwealth: Connecticut 1636-62 (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1968), pp. 101-102.