LGBT history in the United States spans the contributions and struggles of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, as well as the LGBT social movements they have built. 17th–18th century Colonial life Colonies in the early 1600s were established with Puritan or Christian norms. These norms included the traditional heterosexual family structure with a man and a woman. This led to the criminalization of homosexuality, or sodomy, in the early colonies Sodomy in the early colonies Documented executions for sodomy began in 1624 with Richard Cornish, a member of the Virginia Colony. Influenced by Puritan beliefs and values, the Massachusetts Bay General Court was the first to officially outlaw sodomy in 1631. The first (documented) conviction for lesbian behavior in America took place in 1649 with the arrest and execution of Sarah White Norman and Mary Vincent Hammon. In 1714 Sodomy laws were established across the early colonies and in the colonial militia; the laws were not abolished until 1925. 19th century Noah Webster published the original Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language in 1828. He included several LGBT terms in his book; focusing on terms for gay sexual practices and ignoring lesbian sexual practices: bugger, buggery, pathic, pederast, pederastic, pederasty, sodomy, and sodomite. He occasionally cited the King James Version. For example, Webster cited First Epistle to the Corinthians VI to define the homosexual context of the term abuser. Another citation is the Book of Genesis 18 to associate the term, cry to the Sodom and Gomorrah. One of the first public advocates for gay rights in America was the Presbyterian pastor Carl Schlegel. Figures Both American presidents James Buchanan and his successor Abraham Lincoln were speculated to be homosexual. The sexuality of Abraham Lincoln has been considered for over a century. Perhaps the greatest proof to connect Lincoln and homosexuality is a poem that he wrote in his youth that reads: "But Billy has married a boy". LGBT persons were present throughout the post-independence history of the country, with gay men having served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. The United States saw the rise of its own Uranian poetry after the Uranian ("Urnings") movement began to rise in the Western world. Walt Whitman denied his homosexuality in a letter after asked outright about his sexual orientation by John Addington Symonds. Bayard Taylor wrote Joseph and His Friend: A Story of Pennsylvania in