Former Clinton Adviser and Feminist Author Realizes Giant Error In New Book While On-Air

Former Bill Clinton adviser and feminist author Naomi Wolf saw a central part of her upcoming book debunked during a BBC interview that aired Tuesday.

In her book Outrages: Sex, Censorship, and the Criminalization of Love, Wolf posits that a revolution in British law's approach to homosexuality took place in the 19th Century, eventually coming to America. One of her most dramatic claims was that many homosexuals were executed under sodomy laws in the U.K. after 1835, the consensus date of the last execution for sodomy in Britain.

"I found several dozen executions, but that was, again, only looking at the Old Bailey records and the crime tables," she said during an interview on "Arts and Ideas" with broadcaster Matthew Sweet. "This corrects a misapprehension that is in every website, that the last man was executed for sodomy in Britain in 1835."

However, this was based on a misunderstanding of the British legal term "death recorded," created in 1823, which meant the death penalty was not carried out. Sweet pointed this out, reading her the definition of "death recorded" with which she was unfamiliar.

"I don't think any of the executions you've identified here actually happened," Sweet said.

"Well, that's a really important thing to investigate. What is your understanding of what ‘death recorded' means?" Wolf asked...

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