The History of Sex: Geneva -- 'Fornicating Renegade Priests' -- (Chap. V, Pt. 5)

By 1541, Calvin's allies had come to power in Geneva and begged him to return, effectively granting him carte blanche to turn the republic into a Protestant theocracy.

By the time of his death in 1564, Calvin had vanquished the old guard of Geneva who resented 'that Frenchman,' his fellow foreigners, and his 'fornicating renegade priests.'

These free-spirited natives styled themselves the Children of Geneva, but Calvin denounced them as Libertines—giving us the modern meaning of the term—and ran their leaders out of town on pain of torture or execution.

Ironically, Catholic propagandists had invented a story that Calvin
had been branded as a sodomite before fleeing to Geneva

At the same time, he made Geneva an international safe haven for religious refugees.

These immigrants turned the 'Protestant Rome' into a center of artisanry and banking, with no fewer than forty printers cranking out Master Calvin's works as well as one of the first English translations of the Bible, compiled in part by the Scottish refugee John Knox.

The 'Geneva Bible' became the version read by Shakespeare and the one the Pilgrim Fathers took to America on the Mayflower, along with the founding principles of Calvinism.

Like its Catholic counterpart, though, the Protestant Rome had its excesses.

Calvin effectively ran Geneva as a religious dictatorship. As in much of Europe, torture was commonplace, though in Geneva's case it's ironic given the city's modern association with human rights.

It also doesn't seem much of a defense to argue that the self-styled City of God was as bad as everywhere else.

Geneva had already started cracking down before Calvin arrived, but the Reformer took the crusade against sin to Biblical extremes, outlawing prostitution (natch), but also premarital sex, dancing, immodesty, swearing, make-up and drinking in taverns.

In keeping with the rest of the Continent, heresy was a capital offence, but in Geneva that could take the form of simply disagreeing with Calvin.

The guy who complained about the Frenchman's 'fornicating renegade priests'—and was stupid enough to hang a placard on the pulpit where he preached—was tortured for a month and finally beheaded.