Amendment VIII (also known as Bill 64) was created in 1778 and was a list of punishments for crimes that was submitted to the Virginia Assembly in 1779. It was Jefferson alone who created Bill 64, though the other bills that formed the context around 64 were created by a committee of others.
It's an interesting read and can be seen in full
here.
At a certain point you reach the sentence below:
Whosoever shall be guilty of Rape, Polygamy, or Sodomy with man or woman shall be punished, if a man, by castration, if a woman, by cutting thro' the cartilage of her nose a hole of one half inch diameter at the least.
Now, Jefferson is known as the greatest supporter of individuals rights among the Founders (and is perhaps the favorite Founder of liberals and libertarians). He is often quoted as saying:
"If it neither breaks my leg nor picks my pocket, what difference is it to me?"
Glenn Beck recently used this Jefferson quote when
he stated on the "O'Reilly Factor" that homosexual marriage did not bother him and is not a threat to the country.
Yet looking at the top quote from Bill 64 we see that Jefferson wrote out harsh punishments for homosexuality and grouped it together with other forms of sexual deviancy.
So my question to liberals and libertarians (if you support gay marriage) is this:
Since Jefferson was the greatest advocate of individual liberties during the founding of these United States, how does Jefferson's negative view of gay marriage (or more specifically, homosexuality in general) meld with your positive views of gay marriage? Is it possible that homosexual marriage is not an individual right?