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The true descendants of the Puritans of the Northeast are the Liberals of the Northeast - same desire to control aspects of peoples’ lives. The gov’t has no business telling consenting adults with whom they can have sex.

True descendants: I don't think you mean literal biological descendants, since there are tens of millions of them all over the country and their current religious beliefs mostly differ from their forefathers.

Perhaps you mean the true descendants in terms of what you call the "desire to control aspects of peoples' lives" which you attribute to Liberals of the Northeast. I see virtually no attempt at all by liberals of the northeast to control anything related to morality; in the northeast most anything goes. In fact, eastern Massachusetts and the Cape Code area, where the "Pilgrims" first landed, is a bastion of homosexuality that stands out like a sore thumb to even a traveller passing through.

In regards to the gov't having no business, etc., we perhaps have no common understanding of morality. I am a Christian in the Reformed tradition, which is what the "Puritans" were, which I hope does not make you rush to point the finger of "ha!" at me - at least too quickly !

Perhaps we can agree that there is a lot more in the Bible than just guidelines for conduct relating to sex.

In fact, there is much more to the Bible than I can quickly convey to you here, of course.

Any truly believing Reformed Christian will know that the Bible (the Word of God) specifically directs them to not force anyone to believe, repent or even improve their moral conduct. The Bible, in various verses, tells us that this is ultimately futile and actually meaningless in effecting the person's salvation. If I convince or force someone to refrain from sexual immorality - it does nothing to merit that person's salvation ! Little known fact, outside of those who really know their Bible. Without salvation, a person at their death is destined for eternal damnation; eternal separation from God. Therefore, when a true believer sees a person caught up in sin, their concern would be with the person's soul, and if anything they would simply testify of the Gospel (good news) to them.

Sex outside of marriage, historically, was recognized by society to cause what we call today "single mothers". For thousands of years, it was known as "the fatherless" or bastard children. Sex outside of marriage also causes the spread of disease, but of course, STD's were not understood until relatively recently. In most societies of the past, life would often be very hard on families where daughters became pregnant but had no husband. Hence, daughters were married to men and would leave their home and start their own family with their husband. This was pretty much par for the course for all of history until after WWII. If you wanted to have sex with your neighbor's daughter - you would have to marry her first, so you wouldn't start making your neighbor pay for your children.

Christianity was brought to Europe in the first millenium after the death of Christ - and European law is largely the source of American law. The arrival of Christianity in Europe formed a new basis of legitimacy for it's rulers as they converted, and, accordingly, their laws came to reflect a Christian moral foundation. The Bible recognizes the difference between civil government and the Church, and that both are God-ordained institutions. It says that the civil government is given "the power of the sword" over people - and that part of God's purpose for the civil government is to restrain evil acts against the innocent.

In the Bible, sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman is called fornication, and is prohibited. While this and all other sorts of debauchery happened - and certainly was hidden or ignored, especially by the upper classes - it was never officially condoned to the point of being promoted by the law in Europe or in America, any more than lying or stealing was. That is, until the 20th century.

The idea that "The gov’t has no business telling consenting adults with whom they can have sex" has no basis in law as a "Constitutional" viewpoint prior to about 1960. One would be hard pressed to accept this, however, if one only read Wikipedia or liberal websites. However, it is clear that it is not a founding principle of America if one reads primary documents, and there is nothing in the Constitution that prohibits the States from passing laws governing sexual acts. In fact, before 1962, every State had laws prohibiting immoral sexual acts which were held by the Supreme Court to be Constitutional for 215 years.

Sexual immorality laws were not specifically repealed, but, as part of a "standardization" process initiated by the legal profession, namely the American Law Institute, State criminal laws had bulk changes passed into law - and the sexual morality laws were often simply omitted. The ALI had drafted a Model Penal Code, finished in 1962, and this formed the basis for passage of various blocks of law by numerous States.

Modern revisionists sometimes wrongly claim that immorality laws were rarely or never prosecuted. To wit:

Morris County,New Jersey Court Records. December 22,1762. The King vs.JOHANNAH AYRES charged with fornication. She plead guilty. 1,5 fine and 30 stripes on her bare back on 27th day of December 1762.

Simple searches will turn up many case records of prosecution of immorality under the law.

Sodomy laws were upheld in 1986 Bowers v. Hardwick by the Supreme Court, and then, true to it's historical decade-or-two pattern, it reversed itself in 2003 Lawrence v. Texas which had the effect of invalidating all morality laws in the U.S.

Those Justices of the Supreme Court who were in the majority in Lawrence v. Texas can rest easy in this case despite their pathetic attempts at rationalizing their political interests. O'Connor's logical contortions to allow her to avoid advocating overturning the Bowers case, in which she was in the majority, and yet still be in the majority for Lawrence which, according to her four Lawrence cohorts, did indeed overturn Bowers (only lawyers can do this) reveal quite the logical gymnast. O'Connor can rest easy, however, because she based her case on equal protection, the liberal judge's catch-all. And the other four can rest easy also in their claim that Bower's assertion of sodomy being widely and historically comdemned is somehow refutable.

The majority opinion in the 2003 case stated "the Texas statute furthers no legitimate state interest which can justify its intrusion into the personal and private life of the individual".

Well, what about the enormous number of illegitimate children born in America since 1960 ? The fatherless, all the children of single mothers ? Since the 1960's America has had it's "sexual revolution" going, removing impediments to anyone having sex any time they want with whomever they want. It's been very encouraging for men and women, young and old to feel no need to refrain from sex outside of marriage. But if this government-condoned casual sex produces millions of children, most of them living with single mothers who find it difficult financially to get along, to work and care for children at the same time and therefore need more government services, what then ? Does that not burden the government and the taxpayer ? Is that not a "legitimate state interest" - the cost of having millions of babies with struggling or absent parents ?

No worries, we can all "rest easy", the SCOTUS has wisely taken care of that. They took care of all those unwanted children in 1973 in the Roe v. Wade decision.

IMHO.