I proposition you...

                                Sodomy laws and the Bible.

                In this project, I would be seeking to look at the sodomy laws from the point of view of either an attorney trying to work to get them repealed or from a balanced perspective looking at the views of both those for sodomy laws and against them. I would initiate the project by first looking at why they are named “sodomy laws” and whether or not there is a reason why they can’t be labeled something more telling like “laws against sexual perversion,” since that was obviously how those who instituted them saw homosexuals: sexual perverts. This would continue into a definition of any terms (basic, important, or otherwise) that may find their way into the project as a whole before going into the translation issues that led to the umbrella-term of 'sodomy'. Continuing on I would try to highlight some of the verses that anti-homosexual, or pro-sodomy law, people would bring up in an argument, and then break these down and see what basis there is, if any, to institute them in the form of secular law. Depending on the direction in which I decide to go, I may then strive to illustrate why these people are wrong in their assumptions of placing constraints on homosexuals. This would entail finding the sites in Scripture which may have been used to promote the sodomy laws and tear them to pieces. There are several arguments that could be made including the mistranslation issue. However, if I go by the other route and try to approach the issue from the perspective of both (all) sides, I would have to start out by stating the two (or more but I think only two) sides that I will seek to represent or look into involving this debate. I believe this would only involve the pro-sodomy law/ anti-homosexual camp and the anti-sodomy law/ pro-homosexual camp. I’d approach this task by first naming the sides, then spelling out the views of both sides and where the two conflict. A history lesson of the two factions and the sodomy laws themselves would also be in order as these may not be common knowledge to everyone. The balanced look would probably not try to come to any conclusions but an attempt could be made to decide between the two sides. As I found in the Introduction to the Study of Religion course, it may be hard to keep my own views outside of the paper but I will try the best I can. I won’t seek to impose my views on anyone and may even put forward the fact in some sort of a foreword that I am writing with my own thoughts while trying to stay true to the historic documents that I will be discussing.
*** Extension: Looking at countries today which still have laws along the lines of the U.S.'s old sodomy laws.