Your religion is not my religion. The law should not prevent me from doing things just because you think it'll send me to hell, anymore than the law should force you to practice my religion.
If you don't believe in freedom of religion, that's your choice, but it sort of one of the founding principles of the USA.
And yet the first amendment guarantees freedom of religion and none of these 13 colonies banned prostitution, so it seems your assumption is incorrect.
> Laws against adultery in colonial America were very harsh. Despite this, there is only one known execution for adultery in American history: it occurred in the Colony of Massachusetts in 1643, when the married 18 year old Mary Latham[118] and her extramarital lover James Britton were executed.[119][120]
This is new to me, I had no idea. But it seems that in colonial Massachusetts at least, adultery was a capital crime. Technically colonial Massachusetts isn't Massachusetts state. I don't know when this/these laws were revised, but it seems plausible that some of them lasted past the colonial era.
Which makes sense. Too many lawmakers would have to be hanged if it was actually illegal, as there were plenty of scandals around affairs made public. Hamilton for example admitted to having an affair (https://www.history.com/news/alexander-hamilton-maria-reynol...), which would of course be a crazy thing to do if he could be hanged over it.
Well, even today adultry is illegal in some states, but thankfully not a capital crime. As of 2022 It's illegal in 16 states (including a few surprising states like New York) and a felony in 3 (Michigan, Wisconsin, and Oklahoma.)
But yes, enforcement is rare and probably for exactly the reason you say.
