The general attitude about homosexuality in Miami mirrored many other cities' across the country.
After Florida became a territory of the United States in 1821, the Territorial Legislature enacted laws against fornication, adultery, bigamy, and incest, as well as against 'open lewdness, or.any notorious act of public indecency, tending to debauch the morals of society.' įlorida's first specific sodomy law, which was enacted in 1868 and made sodomy a felony, read: 'Whoever commits the abominable and detestable crime against nature, either with mankind or with beast, shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison not exceeding twenty years.' In 1917, the Florida Legislature added a lesser crime, a second-degree misdemeanor: 'Whoever commits any unnatural and lascivious act with another person shall be punished by fine not exceeding five hundred dollars, or by imprisonment not exceeding six months.' Homosexuality was not addressed specifically in the 1917 law.
