That's not an argument, though. The early and medieval Church imposed some serious penalties for failing to toe the line on matters of morality and heresy. I don't defer to that time period either in advising on current legislation ("Hey, you could be drawn and quartered back then for having a sex toy. You shouldn't be complaining that you're only getting 30 days in jail now.")
No, it was to demonstrate that people who "chase bears", as you put it, still have time to enforce rules that we would consider today to be related to matters of personal choice.