[262] It is scarcely necessary to add that the same principle is adaptable to the case of homosexual women.  “In all such cases,” writes an American woman physician, “I would recommend that the moral sense be trained and fostered, and the persons allowed to keep their individuality, being taught to remember always that they are different from others, rather sacrificing their own feelings or happiness when necessary.  It is good discipline for them, and will serve in the long run to bring them more favor and affection than any other course.  This quality or idiosyncrasy is not essentially evil, but, if rightly used, may prove a blessing to others and a power for good in the life of the individual; nor does it reflect any discredit upon its possessor.”

[263] The existence of an affinity between homosexuality and the religious temperament has been referred to in ch. i as recognized in many parts of the world.  See, for a more extended discussion, Horneffer, Der Priester, and Bloch, Die Prostitution, vol. i, pp. 101-110.  The psychoanalysts have also touched on this point; thus Pfister, Die Frommingkeit des Grafen von Zinzendorf (1910), argues that the founder of the pietistic sect of the Herrenhuter was of sublimated homosexual (or bisexual) temperament.

[264] Forel, Die Sexuelle Frage, p. 528.  Such ideas are, of course, often put forward by inverts themselves.

[265] Roman law previously seems to have been confined in this matter to the protection of boys.  The Scantinian and other Roman laws against paiderasty seem to have been usually a dead letter.  See, for various notes and references, W.G.  Holmes, The Age of Justinian and Theodora, vol. i, p. 121.

[266] Epistle to the Romans, chapter i, verses 26-7.

[267] In practice this penalty of death appears to have been sometimes commuted to ablation of the sexual organs.

[268] For a full sketch of the legal enactments against homosexual intercourse in ancient and modern times, see Numa Praetorius, “Die straflichen Bestimmungen gegen den gleichgeschlechtlichen Verkehr,” Jahrbuch fuer sexuelle Zwischenstufen, vol. i, pp. 97-158.  This writer points out that Justinian, and still more clearly, Pius V, in the sixteenth century, distinguished between occasional homosexuality and deep-rooted inversion, habitual offenders alone, not those who had only been guilty once or twice, being punished.

[269] The influence of the supposed connection of sodomy with unbelief, idolatry, and heresy in arousing the horror of it among earlier religions has been emphasized by Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, vol. i, p. 486 et seq.

[270] “Any male person who in public or private commits, or is a party to the commission of, or procures or attempts to procure the commission by any male person of, any act of gross indecency with another male person, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and, being convicted thereof, shall be liable at the discretion of the court to be imprisoned for any term not exceeding two years, with or without hard labor.”