Same-Sex Sexual Activity Should Again Be a Crime
Same-sex activity was illegal, yes.
In Douglas Wilson’s own words: 8 quotes from 2018 to 2026, from UNCLOSETED with Spencer Macnaughton, CNN and The Wall Street Journal, each cited to the source.
[Spencer Macnaughton: “What specifically do you mean by that? Like what becomes illegal when it comes to sodomy laws?”] OK. I would regard sodomy as male-to-male intercourse, anal intercourse or oral intercourse. [SM: “Would hand jobs count or just anal and oral?”] No, between two men, between two men... Hand jobs, oral sex and anal intercourse—would be sodomy... Well, I would say that the main enforcement mechanism would be social expectations and a withholding of societal approval. It would be sort of ‘back in the closet, boys,’ not because of fear of legal retribution, but because this is simply not done. [SM: “So would it be illegal, or are you kind of walking back?”] No, I’m not walking it back. I think it ought to be that society needs to express its disapproval of this behavior in law.
When I first began ministering in 1977, in the late ’70s and early ’80s, sodomy was a felony in all 50 states, and that America of that day was not a totalitarian hellhole. [Pamela Brown: “So you would like America to go back to that?”] Yep. [Pamela Brown: “And someone watching might be like, you want to control behavior in the bedroom?”] Well, yeah. Well, I have the advantage of having built my own house. And people like to say that liberals don’t care what you do in your bedroom, but the state had opinions about how thick the sheetrock had to be in the bedroom, how far apart the sheetrock screws had to be, how big the window had to be for egress... What do you mean the government doesn’t care what happens in the bedroom?
[Aaron Zitner: “And gay rights, gay marriage, homosexual activity?”] No gay marriage, no... [Aaron Zitner: “But at one point in this country, same-sex activity was a felony. Would you reinstate that?”] Same-sex activity was illegal, yes. And would be again, yes.
[Cenk Uygur: “First, are you saying that we should bring back sodomy laws or no?”] Yeah, I think that sodomy—homosexual acts—should be against the law. Yes... Same-sex mirage, I call it, ought to be not a legal thing. I want homosexual unions to be not a thing anymore. And so consequently, I want those relationships to be banned—first not recognized, not honored, not glorified—and secondly, I think that it ought to be against the law.
Sodomy was a felony in all 50 states. [Host: "All 50."] And my point in the interview was not primarily, let's go back to that, although I'd be happy to. My point was that state of affairs, America was a free and prosperous country at that time. We were not a totalitarian hellhole because we had those laws.
There are a number of other questions I am leaving unanswered. One of them has to do with the governmental treatment of certain individuals convicted of certain homosexual acts in some unnamed Christian republic five hundred years from now. They are reasonable questions, but please keep in mind that I am in a series of controversies of some unreasonable people, and so I will answer generally. In such a republic, would homosexual acts be against the law, and if so, what would the penalty be? Like I said, reasonable questions. Yes, such behavior would be against the law — just like it was throughout all fifty states just a few short years ago. And what would the penalties be? The answer to that question requires a certain level of cultural maturity (beyond what is currently in evidence) — that has to take into account careful exegesis of the Old Testament texts, the nature and purpose of common law, the circumstances of each particular case, the flow of redemptive history, and the forgiveness that is offered to everyone in Jesus Christ.
When I first began ministering in the 70s as a preacher, sodomy was a felony in all 50 states. Now the point I'm making here is that the America of the late 70s was not a totalitarian hellhole, but we had laws like that on the books. And what that basically amounted to in practice was the ability of a magistrate, a local municipal police department or whatever to shut down bathhouses, to have a vice—and that'd be the sort of thing that I'd be interested in. A vice squad that could shut down bathhouses or deal with prostitution... I am primarily interested in the suppression of public vice. So no more homosexual marriages, no more pride parades, no more flaunting that sort of thing. But I don't want a sex gestapo either.
[Cenk Uygur: "So but if the government, big government, barges into your home for whatever reason, they find you in the wrong kind of sex, you think that that person should be arrested?"] I don't think there's anything perverse or evil about charging them with this additional crime if they had a warrant... I'm entirely in favor of probable cause, you know, getting a judge to give a warrant, that sort of thing. If you have a collection of offenses and a sexual offense is one of them, and it's against the law, then I don't see any problem with charging them with that also.