Jefferson famously said Christianity never was part of the common law. And I was surprised to recently learn that was because he thought crimes like blasphemy were theocratic in nature. (He did still support sodomy and adultery laws for some reason.) He thought governments were instituted to protect rights (read that in the Declaration of Independence). And like Hobbes, he thought to enforce contracts. As I said, the nine original common law felonies were felonious homicide, mayhem, arson, rape, robbery, burglary, larceny, prison breach, and rescue of a felon. Things like adultery and sabbath breaking were considered matters for the ecclesiastical courts in England. So Jefferson supported vice laws, though not in principal I guess. And despite what people think, the supposedly liberal Warren Court upheld most vice crimes, while trying protecting the right to privacy too. (I don't know what Hobbes' position on church and vice crimes was.)
I was going to say, I have been studying this for some time. The only purpose of governments is to ensure public welfare and public safety. And, as Thomas Hobbes said, to enforce legal obligations like contracts. To make sure everyone plays fair, in other words. They are not supposed to get involved in moral arguments that are mostly religious. (Some religious conservative on Real Time with Bill Maher said a while back, that crimes like murder and prostitution are both illegal for the same reason. They are both immoral. As Bill Maher told him, what a horrible thing to say.) Anyways, to just follow one list. This one is from the preamble to the U.S. Constitution. The six main purposes of government listed in that (and thus supposedly establishing the purposes of government in the U.S.) are: to preserve the Union, to promote justice, to insure domestic tranquility, to provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure liberty under the law. Jefferson would have agreed laws against prostitution and obscenity were just ecclesiastical, or church, offenses. (I recently read there were no obscenity statutes in the U.S. after the revolution. But Washington and Jefferson would have considered obscenity a crime like blasphemy, it said.) I read some time back that Jefferson was not only against an establishment of religion at the federal level, but at the state level too. But he also believed in states' rights, and thought that each state should work out that issue for itself. Why then, he thought crimes like adultery should be still illegal in his home state of Virginia, I don't know. He might have just been trying to compromise with people in government at the time. He thought the person who did crimes like adultery should be mutilated, but allowed to live. Which some people at the time at least thought was very radical.
