The all-knowing, all-seeing Maja-Rushie notes in this post to his website that "when the Constitution was ratified, the 13 original states had anti-sodomy laws. In Virginia, sodomy was punishable by death at the time of the founding."
I have no idea whether this is true, but Rush never lets the facts get in the way of a good story, or even a bad one. This source suggests the history is somewhat different, as it argues that colonial Virginia "apparently did not recognize sodomy as a crime except for less than a decade, and then as a military regulation," and submits that Virginia adopted its first sodomy law in 1792 (which did make sodomy a felony, punishable by death like other felonies).
Tim Sandefur has more here on Thomas Jefferson's attempt in the 1770s to reduce the punishment in Virginia for sodomy from death to castration.
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