[ndsipa_pomu]

> Homosexuality was seen as a perversion in the public eye.

Possibly, but the law was criminalising what happened in private. There's a big difference between prudish laws that ban public displays and intrusive laws that govern what consenting adults do in private.

[rsynnott]

That’s arguably a fairly modern idea. Many western European countries had laws against homosexuality (generally ~dormant) until the 80s. Until 2003, 14 US states effectively criminalised male homosexuality; see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_v._Texas

Lest you think this is totally confined to the past:

> In his concurring opinion [on Dobbs], Justice Clarence Thomas, wrote, "In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court's substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell. […]”

Those would be the court cases which legalised contraception, homosexuality, and same-sex marriage across the US. It would be a mistake to think of this sort of intrusive law as purely a thing of the past; the far-right will bring them back, given half a chance.

[jl6]

We now recognize this of course, but I think the point being made above is that society at the time did not, and they thought they were acting morally.

Perhaps the lesson is that actions done out of a sense of moral righteousness should not be immune from challenge. Much evil is committed in the name of good.

[freedomben]

Reminds me somewhat of this great C.S. Lewis observation:

> “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

[kcplate]

This is exactly why I see virtually no difference between the desired tyrannies of the “woke” types today as compared to the religious right of the ‘80s and ‘90s. It’s the same shit with a slightly different script. That inherent desire to criminalize opinions and behaviors that might offend their chosen moralities whether or not it actually affects them individually or even others.

[EnigmaFlare]

We're not on the good side of some clear morality dividing line. Plenty of consensual private actions are illegal today. The most obviously similar one is incest. But there's also consensual violence and euthanasia, as well as all the things you're not allowed to have on your computer, even if you created them yourself in some western countries.

People seem to thing us moderns are more moral but we're not really, we just changed our morals so other cultures look immoral in comparison - and we look immoral in comparison to them too.

[freedomben]

Indeed. One of the most criminalized things today is taking any sort of drug (besides alcohol, and now cannabis in many places) even in the privacy of your own home where nobody else even has to know.