Queers in History: September 2011

Friday, 30 September 2011

Sodomy in History, September 30

1895 — The California Supreme Court overturns a sodomy conviction because the trial judge did not submit the issue of consent to the jury.

1975 — The New Hampshire Supreme Court rejects the claim that the state’s sodomy law applies only to people of the same sex.

Source:

Calendar of Sodomy, September.

Jalal al-Din Rumi, Sufi Mystic/Poet

b. September 30, 1207
d. December 17, 1273

"Only from the heart can you touch the sky."

Jalal al-Din Rumi was a poet, theologian and Sufi mystic. He founded the Order of the Whirling Dervishes, a branch of the Sufi tradition that practicies a gyrating dance ritual representing the revolving stages of life.

Rumi was born in the Persian province of Balkh, now part of Afghanistan. Rumi’s father was an author, a religious scholar and a leader in the Sufi movement—the mystical dimension of Islam.

When Rumi was 12, his father moved the family to escape the impending invasion of Mongol armies, eventually setting in Konya, Anatolia, the westernmost tip of Asia where Turkey is today.

In 1231, after his father died, Rumi began teaching, meditating and helping the poor. He amassed hundreds of disciples who attended his lectures and sermons.

Rumi was married and had one son. After his wife’s death, he remarried and fathered two more children. In 1244, Rumi met a man who changed his life. Shams of Tabriz was an older Sufi master who became Rumi’s spiritual mentor and constant companion. After Shams died, Rumi grieved for years. He began expressing his love and bereavement in poetry, music and dance.

Rumi had two other male companions, but none would replace his beloved Shams. One of Rumi’s major poetic works is named in honor of his master, "The Works of Shams of Tabriz." Rumi’s best-known work is "Spiritual Couplets," a six-volume poem often referred to as the greatest work of mystical poetry.

In “Rumi: The Book of Love Poems of Ecstasy and Longing” (2003), Rumi expresses his perception of true love. "Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along."

Rumi died surrounded by his family and disciples. His tomb is one of the most revered pilgrimage sites in Islam and is a spiritual center of Turkey.

Thursday, 29 September 2011

Sodomy in History, September 29

September 29

1938 — A Georgia appellate court rules that interfemoral intercourse does not violate the state’s "crime against nature" law.

1942 — The California Supreme Court overturns the lewd and lascivious act conviction of a man for fondling the crotch of his partner because he never touched the bare skin, and the partner made inconsistent statements in court.

Source:

Calendar of Sodomy, September.

Wednesday, 28 September 2011

Sodomy in History, September 28

September 28

1654 — Belgian sculptor Jérome Duquesnoy is burned at the stake for committing sodomy.

1966 — The Florida Supreme Court upholds a conviction for attempted consensual sodomy. The Court said that the public can find out what is illegal under the law by visiting a law library.

1972 — A Tennessee appellate court upholds the state’s sodomy law.

September 30

1895 — The California Supreme Court overturns a sodomy conviction because the trial judge did not submit the issue of consent to the jury.

1975 — The New Hampshire Supreme Court rejects the claim that the state’s sodomy law applies only to people of the same sex.

Source:

Calendar of Sodomy, September.

Tuesday, 27 September 2011

Sodomy in History, September 27

September 27

1943 — The Colorado Supreme Court upholds the conviction of a man for sodomy and for an attempt. It concedes that there was no evidence for the attempt conviction, but says he won’t get out of prison any earlier with that portion of his conviction overturned, so leaves it standing.

1951 — An Illinois appellate court upholds a psychopathic offender designation on a man with a history of consensual sodomy.

1956 — The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit votes 3-0 to reverse the assault conviction of a man for touching the undercover police who encouraged him.

1957 — The Arizona Supreme Court rejects a vagueness challenge to the sodomy law.

1965 — The Wisconsin Supreme Court denies the habeas corpus petition of a man sent to a mental facility for sodomy without the assistance of an attorney and who received no attorney’s help until 10 years later.

1979 — The Texas Court of Civil Appeals upholds the disbarment of an attorney for consensual fellatio with another man.

1988 — The Oklahoma Court of Appeals hints that all consensual sodomy is constitutionally protected, not just that between people of the opposite sex. Just 15 days later, the same court decides that sexual privacy is for heterosexuals only.

Source:

Calendar of Sodomy, September.

Sunday, 25 September 2011

Sodomy in History, September 25

September 25

1845 — Illinois raises the maximum penalty for sodomy from 10 years to life imprisonment.

Source:

Calendar of Sodomy, September.

Saturday, 24 September 2011

Sodomy in History, September 24

September 24

1731 — Twenty-two men are strangled and burned for sodomy in Faan, the Netherlands. Two die under torture. A total of 96 Gay men are executed in the years 1730-1731, 36% of the total from 1701-1809.

1813 — In England, James Williams is entrapped by a man he tries to pick up. A prearranged meeting had been set up and a third party is invited as a witness to the solicitation.

1957 — An Austrian committee recommends repeal of that nation’s sodomy law, but it will take 14 years for the repeal to happen.

1992 — The Kentucky Supreme Court strikes down the state’s same-sex-only sodomy law both as an invasion of privacy and a denial of equal protection of the laws. The decision declares Gay men and Lesbians to be a "suspect classification" under the state constitution for discrimination purposes.

Source:

Calendar of Sodomy, September.

Friday, 23 September 2011

Sodomy in History, September 23

September 23

1905 — The Iowa Supreme Court upholds a conviction for "an unnatural crime, which need not be named."

1974 — A Pennsylvania court upholds the state’s sodomy law against a marital status discrimination claim.

Source:

Calendar of Sodomy, September.

Thursday, 22 September 2011

Sodomy in History, September 22

September 22

1676 — Governor Edmond Andros of New York issues an order extending the 1665 sodomy law of New York into what now are Pennsylvania and Delaware.

Source:

Calendar of Sodomy, September.

Wednesday, 21 September 2011

The Sacred Band of Thebes: Gay lovers as the military ideal

From this side of the Atlantic, the long delay in doing away with DADT in the US seems odd, at best. In the UK, gay men and lesbians not only serve freely and openly in the armed services and in the police, but can be seen every year participating in London Pride, marching in uniform through the streets of London - and in other gay pride marches up and down the country. Elsewhere in Europe, LGBT participation in the military is at least as relaxed. This easy acceptance of gay soldiers is not a new idea - quite the reverse. In earlier times, and in other cultures, it was often assumed that military life and it's all-male environment would attract a high proportion of men who loved men, and so it did. Going back to classical times, it was even believed by some that gay soldiers represented a military ideal.

In Plato’s Symposium, Phaedrus proposed the creation of an army of lovers, because men behave at their best when in love, and that no army could be better than one composed of lovers:

“No man is such a craven that love cannot inspire him with a courage that makes him equal to the bravest born.”

In about 378 BCE, this literary speculation entered historical fact, putting the notion to practical testing, when Georgidas applied Phaedrus’ reasoning to the creation of the “Sacred Band of Thebes”, a company of 300 soldiers, comprising exclusively pairs of lovers. Was Phaedrus right? Was the Sacred band successful?

You betcha!.

For forty years, the company was celebrated throughout Greece for their courage and military success. When at last they were overcome, fighting to the last man against vastly superior numbers, their conqueror Philip of Macedon, said of them that no man, seeing their valour, could possibly think their love shameful. (Now, note,that this was Philip of Macedon, whose son Philip II was himself not averse to a little man on man action, and whose grandson was Alexander the Great, conqueror of the world ,as far as it was then known - and renowned for his love of Bagoas).

Looking back some centuries later, Plutarch was able to record that he most war-like societies were noted for male love, and listed some famous heroes who were also known for the men they loved: Meleager, Achilles, Aristomenes, Cimon, Epaminondas, and Ioläus (companion of Hercules, and at whose tomb same sex lovers were said to make their vows of commitment.)

In short, for the Greeks, ideals of male were so firmly rooted in their heroes, that it was seen as a sign of real manliness. After listing some of the most famous, from every category of leaders and thinkers, Crompton observes:

This is an astounding record, including most of the greatest names of ancient Greece, during the greatest period of Greek culture. For many biographers, for a man not to have had a male lover seems to have bespoken a lack of character or a deficiency of sensibility.

So, the verdict of the Greeks:

Straight men, with no male lovers – lacking in character;

Homophobia - origins in evil, despotism, and cowardice.

*******

But take heart, Americans. Even if you (officially) have no gay soldiers, every time you sing the Star-Spangled Banner, you are indirectly singing in praise of homoerotic relationships. The tune is based on a an English drinking song, “To Anacreon in heaven.” Before his poetry was lost to posterity, Anacreon was the most celebrated Greek lyric poet of male love.

References:

Boswell, John: Same-Sex Unions in pre-modern Europe
Crompton, Louis: Homosexuality & Civilization

Harmodius & Aristogiton: Gay Soldiers at the Foundation of Democracy

The idea of male love was deeply embedded in early Greek culture. Even the gods enjoyed men. Zeus, leader of the pantheon, was renowned for his capture of Ganymede; almost all the remaining make gods also had affairs with men or boys. The heroes of Greek myth ere also affected – Achilles and Patroclus were celebrated by Homer for their prowess as warriors, by later poets and dramatists as lovers.

Athenian democracy began with the overthrow of the rulers known as the “tyrants”. What I didn’t realise until I re-read it in Boswell’s “Same Sex-Unions in Pre-Modern Europe”, was that this overthrow (and hence paving the way for democracy) was credited by Plato to two lovers, Harmodius and Aristogiton.

Sodomy in History, September 21

September 21

1881 — The California Supreme Court states that "Every person of ordinary intelligence understands what the crime against nature with a human being is."

1926 — The Oregon Supreme Court upholds the right of the state to prosecute sodomy attempts under the general attempts statute.

1950 — The Illinois Supreme Court rejects the claim that sodomy can be committed only by people of the same sex.

Source:

Calendar of Sodomy, September.

ALCIBIADES (CA. 450-404 BX.), Athenian general and statesman.

b. c 450 BCE

d. c 404 BCE

Reared in the household of his guardian and uncle Pericles, he became the eromenos and later intimate friend of Socrates, who saved his life in battle. His, brilliance enabled him in 420 to become leader of the extreme democratic faction, and his imperialistic designs led Athens into an alliance with Argos and other foes of Sparta, a policy largely discredited by the Spartan victory at Mantinea. He sponsored the plan for a Sicilian expedition to outflank Sparta, which ended after his recall in the capture of thousands of Athenians, most of whom died in the salt mines where they were confined, but soon after the fleet reached Sicily his enemies recalled him on the pretext of his complicity in the mutilation of the Hermae, the phallic pillars marking boundaries between lots of land. He escaped, however, to Sparta and became the adviser of the Spartan high command. Losing the confidence of the Spartans and accused of impregnating the wife of one of Sparta's two kings, he fled to Persia, then tried to win reinstatement at Athens by winning Persian support for the city and promoting an oligarchic revolution, but without success. Then being appointed commander by the Athenian fleet at Samos, he displayed his military skills for several years and won a brilliant victory at Cyzicus in 410, but reverses in battle and political intrigue at home led to bis downfall, and he was finally murdered in Phrygia in 404.

Though an outstanding politician and military leader, Alcibiades compromised himself by the excesses of his sexual life, which was not confined to his own sex, but was uninhibitedly bisexual, as was typical of a member of the Athenian aristocracy. The Attic comedians scolded him for his adventures; Aristophanes wrote a play (now lost) entitled Triphales (the man with three phalli), in which Alcibiades' erotic exploits were satirized. In his youth, admired by the whole of Athens for his beauty, he bore on his coat of arms an Eros hurling a lightning bolt. Diogenes Laertius said of him that "when a young man, he separated men from their wives, and later, wives from their husbands," while the comedian Pherecrates declared that "Alcibiades, who once was no man, is now the man of all women." He gained a bad reputation for introducing luxurious practices into Athenian life, and even his dress was reproached for extravagance. He combined the ambitious political careerist and the bisexual dandy, a synthesis possible only in a society that tolerated homosexual expression and even a certain amount of heterosexual licence in its public figures. His physical beauty alone impressed his contemporaries enough to remain an inseparable part of his historical image.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Walter Ellis, Alcibiades, New York: Routledge, 1989; Jean Hatzfeld, Alcibiade: Etude sur l'histoire d'Athènes à la fin du Ve siècle, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1951.

Warren Johansson

Anytus, Greek Politician and General - and lover of Alcibiades

Anytus (Greek Ἄνυτος), son of Anthemion, was one of the prosecutors of Socrates. An unsubstantiated legend has it that he was banished from Athens after the public felt guilty about having Socrates executed.We know that he was one of the leading supporters of the democratic forces in Athens (as opposed to the oligarchic forces behind the Thirty Tyrants). Plato also depicts Anytus as an interlocutor in his dialogue the Meno.

Anytus was a powerful, upper-class politician in ancient Athens, one of the nouveaux riches.Anytus served as a general in the Peloponnesian war: He lost Pylos to the Spartans during the war, and was charged with treason. According to Aristotle he was later acquitted by bribing the jury. Anytus won favor after this by playing a major role in overthrowing the Thirty Tyrants. Though Anytus lost much money and provisions during this eight month battle, he made no attempts to regain it back; this also helped his reputation with the Athenians. He came from a family of tanners, successful from the time of his grandfather. Socrates refers to his son's education in the Apology.

Both Anytus and Socrates were lovers of the young Alcibiades, but Alcibiades treated Anytus with great contempt. Once when Anytus had invited him to dinner, Alcibiades arrived late and already drunk. Seeing the table laid with gold and silver dishes, Alcibiades ordered his slaves to take half of the dishes back to his own house. Having played this prank, Alcibiades departed immediately, leaving Anytus and his other guests greatly surprised. When the guests began to rebuke Alcibiades, Anytus excused him, saying that he loved the boy so much that he would have suffered Alcibiades to take the other half of the dishes, too.

In 403 BCE, Anytus supported the Amnesty of Eucleides, which stated that no one who committed a crime before or during the Thirty Tyrants could be prosecuted.

Anytus seems to have had at least two motivations for prosecuting Socrates: Socrates constantly criticised the democratic government of which Anytus was a leader. Anytus may have been concerned that Socrates' criticism was a threat to the newly reestablished democracy. Socrates taught Anytus' son and Anytus perhaps blamed Socrates' teachings for poisoning his son's mind or taking him away from the career path his father had set for him. Xenophon has Socrates forecast that the boy will grow up vicious if he studies a purely technical subject such as tanning. And Xenophon tells us that the son became a drunk.

Source: Wikipedia

Tuesday, 20 September 2011

Gay Soldiers? Role Models, at the Foundation of Democracy.

From this side of the Atlantic, the continued reluctance to do away with DADT seems odd, at best... In the UK, gay men and lesbians not only serve freely and openly in the armed services and in the police, but can be seen every year participating in London Pride, marching in uniform through the streets of London - and in other gay pride marches up and down the country. Elsewhere in Europe, LGBT participation in the military is at least as relaxed.

: Military Pride

It’s not even as if gay soldiers were a new idea. To demonstrate, I want to pay a brief visit to ancient history – but first, I have to ask, “Why do we have a military?” Obviously, for defence – but what is it exactly, we wish to defend? For many of us, that answer is likely to include “democracy”, or even, more grandly “Western civilization”. Now, here’s the thing – a quick look at history shows that gay soldiers were there at the very start of democracy (Plato gives two gay lovers in particular the credit for its very foundation), and were conspicuous thereafter in the defence and development of both democracy and the broader notion of “civilization”. Now, granting that it is a gross oversimplification, let us begin by noting that both democracy as a form of government, and classical culture on which much of European civilization was built, began in Greece, particularly in Athens.

Harmodius & Aristogiton

Athens at the time was under the control of two Tyrants, the brother Hipparchus and Hippias. Hipparchus made a pass at Harmodius, which was rejected.. After he had been rejected a second time, Hipparchus retaliated, then the two lovers got up a conspiracy to overthrow the two. In later years, their fame was such that they were the first men ever to have statues built to them in the public square of Athens, and had images of those statues imprinted on the city’s coinage. These images are said to have become ,as much identified with democracy in Athens as the Statue of Liberty is in New York. They had a popular song sung about them for centuries, recorded by Athenaeus 700 years later. Miltiades used their memory to inspire his troops before the battle of Marathon, saluting them as “Athens’ greatest heroes.” Callisthenes, described them as the men most honoured by Athenians, because they destroyed one of the tyrants and so destroyed the tyranny. Demosthenes called them

“the men to whom you have allotted by statute a share of your libations and drink-offerings in every temple…… and in worship, you treat as the equal of gods and demi-gods.”

With all this praise for the men what does this say about attitudes tot heir love? Plato clearly linked their action to their love, and had some harsh words for critics of their orientation –those whom we today would call the “homophobes”. Here’s Plato:

“Our own tyrants learnt this lesson. Through bitter experience, when the love between Aristogiton and Harmodius grew so strong that it shattered their power”.

Did you get that? Plato states clearly that the power of the tyrants was “shattered” by the strengthening love of two men. He continues with some observations on the origins of opposition to same sex love, which are pertinent to modern homophobia too:

“Wherever, therefore, it has been established that it is shameful to be involved in sexual relationships with men, this is die to evil on the part of the legislators, and to despotism on the part of the rulers, and to cowardice on the part of the governed. “

That’s right, folks. Homophobia originates in evil, despotism, and cowardice. Cowardice? But, wait, isn’t that typical of those weird queers, aren’t they the sissies? That’s not how the ancients saw it, and they had evidence on their side, evidence from the military record. The Greeks were familiar with male lovers among the heroes of with and legend, from Zeuss himself, at the head of the gods, who had abducted Ganymede to be his lover and cupbearer, through Achilles and Patroclus, celebrated by Homer for their bravery and for their love, and also Iolaus, companion of Hercules and participant in his celebrated labours, by whose tomb pairs of lovers were said to pledge their commitments to each other.

Gay lovers: the ideal warriors

Is it surprising that some people began to propose taking advantage of the courage of gay lovers in defence of the city? In Plato’s Symposium, Phaedrus proposed the creation of an army of lovers, because men behave at their best when in love, and that no army could be better than one composed of lovers:

“No man is such a craven that love cannot inspire him with a courage that makes him equal to the bravest born.”

You betcha!.

This is an astounding record, including most of the greatest names of ancient Greece, during the greatest period of Greek culture. For many biographers, for a man not to have had a male lover seems to have bespoken a lack of character or a deficiency of sensibility.

So, the verdict of the Greeks:

Straight men, with no male lovers – lacking in character;
Homophobia - origins in evil, despotism, and cowardice.

*******

This brief look covers only classical Greece - but the pattern is [repeated elsewhere, in the rest of Europe, in Lcassicl and modern times, in Asia - and prett well everywhere, in every age. More will follow.

References:

Boswell, John: Same-Sex Unions in pre-modern Europe

Crompton, Louis: Homosexuality & Civilization

Sodomy in History, September 20

September 20

1944 — A Georgia appellate court rules that drunkenness is no defense to a charge of sodomy.

1966 — An Alabama appellate court says that a sodomy case reminded them of "the savage horror practiced by the dwellers of ancient Sodom from which this crime was nominally derived."

1967 — The North Carolina Supreme Court upholds a sentence of 4-6 years in prison for consensual sodomy.

Source:

Calendar of Sodomy, September.

Monday, 19 September 2011

Abu Nuwas, Islamic Poet of Male Love

Although in the modern world, the Islamic countries are known as those most hostile to male love, it was not always so. In earlier times in the Moslem lands, famous Iranian and Arab poets such as Hafiz i-Shirazi and Abu Nuwas praised and rued the charms of boys (whom they plied with wine and seduced). Sufi holy men from India to Turkey sought to find Allah by gazing upon the beauty of beardless youths. Storytellers included gay love tales in the Thousand and One Nights. Artists like Riza i-Abbasi amused kings and princes with exquisitely wrought erotic Persian miniatures and calligraphies. Mullahs and censors railed against male love, but men of all walks of life, from Caliphs to porters, delighted in it and all looked forward to being attended by fresh-faced tellaks (masseurs) in the hamam, and “unaging ghilman (youths) as beautiful as pearls” in paradise.

Abu-Nuwas al-Hasan ben Hani Al-Hakami (756–814), (best known simply as Abū-Nuwās), was one of the greatest of classical Arabic poets, who also composed in Persian on occasion. Born in the city of Ahvaz, in Persia, where his father was from southern Arabia and his mother was Persian. His first teacher was the poet Waliba ibn al-Hubab (died 786), a master who initiated him into the joys of pederasty as well as poetry.

Originally trained in theology and grammar, he gained his great fame as a poet who excelled in lyrical love poetry, in lampoons and satire, and in "mujun" - frivolous and humorous descriptions of indecent or obscene matters. As with many other Islamic poets, he particularly celebrated in his poetry the love of wine - and boys. As one of the earliest Arab poets to write lyrical love poetry about boys, his achievement and influence helped to bring the genre to great heights.

Abu Nuwas' poetry is characterised by an astonishing lack of inhibition and one of the most attractive features of his diwan is the extent to which his verse reveals its author's personality. What emerges is a likeable, if rather louche, character with an outrageous sense of humour, sharp wit, unaccompanied by malice, and considerable sensibility who let no convention save, on occasion, the order of the caliph, restrain him in his pursuit of life's sensual pleasures. In his khamriyyat, Abu Nuwas offers a glimpse of the hedonistic and dissipated world he inhabited: the world of Baghdad high society at the zenith of the Abbasid caliphate.

I die of love for him, perfect in every way,
Lost in the strains of wafting music.
My eyes are fixed upon his delightful body
And I do not wonder at his beauty.
His waist is a sapling, his face a moon,
And loveliness rolls off his rosy cheek
I die of love for you, but keep this secret:
The tie that binds us is an unbreakable rope.
How much time did your creation take, O angel?
So what! All I want is to sing your praises.

(Love in Bloom; after Monteil, p. 95)

His preferred type of youth was the pale gazelle, whose face shone like the moon, with roses on his cheeks and ambergris in his long curly hair, with musk in his kisses and pearls between his lips, with firm boyish buttocks, a slender and supple body, and a clear voice. Beardless boys held the greatest attraction - the growth of hair on the cheek was likened to that of apes - but here also Abu Nuwas flouted social norms by describing down on the cheek as erotically appealing, since it preserved beauty from indiscreet glances and gave a different flavor to kisses.

The only woman who played an important part in his life was Janan, a slave girl, but, because of his libertine conduct, she never trusted the sincerity of his love. When she asked him to renounce his love of boys, he refused, saying that he was one of the "people of Lot, " with reference to the Arab view that the Biblical Lot was the founder of homosexual love. Abu Nuwas was sexually interested in women or girls only when they looked like boys, but even then he considered their vagina too dangerous a gulf to cross. As he said (symbolically): "I have a pencil which stumbles if I use it on the front of the paper, but which takes great strides on the back." He also wrote about the pleasures of masturbation, which he saw as inferior to the love of boys - but preferable to marriage.

Although his fame rests on his erotic verse and flagrant disregard for religious rules, towards the end of his life he underwent a change of heart, and once again devoted himself to religious studies.

Sodomy in History, September 19

September 18

September 19

1876 — Hawaii permits conviction on a charge of assault to commit sodomy if the jury is not satisfied of guilt of sodomy.

1895 — The Virginia Supreme Court reverses the sodomy conviction of a 10-year-old boy, claiming that it was impossible for him to have committed the act.

1955 — The Maine Supreme Court rules that masturbation does not violate the "crime against nature" law.

1956 — The North Carolina Supreme Court rejects the contention that the crime against nature law was repealed impliedly by a law to protect children from sexual assaults.

1956 — The North Carolina Supreme Court upholds the right of a trial court to correct errors in the record in a sodomy case five years after the trial.

1984 — A Massachusetts appellate court upholds the conviction of a man for consensual sex in a public restroom, despite overhead surveillance.

Source:

Calendar of Sodomy, September.

Saturday, 17 September 2011

Sodomy in History, September 17

September 17

1807 — The Indiana Territory enacts a criminal code, eliminating the 1795 common-law reception. The penalty for sodomy is a maximum 5 years in prison (the 3rd longest in the code), a $500 fine, and 500 lashes (the most in the code). It also contains a curious provision allowing the hiring out of persons convicted of certain crimes, including sodomy, as servants. This creates the possibility of "kept boys." The new code is signed by Governor William Henry Harrison, future President.

Source:

Calendar of Sodomy, September.

Friday, 16 September 2011

Sodomy in History, September 16

September 16

1810 — The Michigan Territory abrogates all English and Northwest Territory law.

1968 — A California appellate court upholds the disorderly conduct conviction of a man who solicited an undercover officer in a bar and was arrested outside the bar after the officer left with him.

Source:

Calendar of Sodomy, September.

Thursday, 15 September 2011

Sodomy in History, September 15

September 15

1786 — Pennsylvania reduces the penalty for sodomy to a maximum of ten years in prison and requires forfeiture of estate and prohibits bail.

1920 — A California appellate court overturns the sodomy conviction of a man because evidence of sexual acts with others was admitted into his trial.

1964 — A Connecticut appellate court upholds the lewdness conviction of a man for soliciting an undercover police officer.

1965 — The Wisconsin Supreme Court rules that a sodomy defendant recommended for "specialized treatment" can not be sentenced to prison.

1967 — The Minnesota Supreme Court upholds the sodomy conviction and five-year prison sentence of a man who pleaded guilty only because police had promised him that he would receive "treatment" instead of being sent to prison. The Court ignores the fact that police lied to him in order to get him to plead guilty.

1978 — A Louisiana appellate court upholds the right of the legislature to set a more severe penalty for solicitation for sodomy than for solicitation for prostitution because sodomy is "unnatural" and prostitution is "natural."

Source:

Calendar of Sodomy, September.

Wednesday, 14 September 2011

Sodomy in History: September 14

September 14

1973 — The Alaska Supreme Court rules that the amendment of the state’s sodomy law in 1971 made fellatio and cunnilingus legal in the state.

1993 — The District of Columbia consensual sodomy law repeal takes effect.

Source:

Calendar of Sodomy, September

Tuesday, 13 September 2011

Sodomy in History: September 13

September 13

1976 — The Louisiana Supreme Court upholds the "crime against nature" law as applied to consensual activity.

1991 — The Nebraska Supreme Court upholds the public indecency conviction of a man seen from the rear in a restroom by the police.

Source:

Calendar of Sodomy, September

Monday, 12 September 2011

Sodomy in History: September 12

September 12

1772 — The Marquis de Sade is sentenced to death in absentia for sodomizing a servant and is burned in effigy.

1967 — Two men in California Governor Ronald Reagan’s cabinet are forced out of their jobs when it is discovered that they are having an affair. When confronted with the evidence, Reagan is supposed to have said, "My god, has government failed?"

Source:

Calendar of Sodomy, September

Sunday, 11 September 2011

Sodomy in History: September 11

September 11

1922 — The Colorado Supreme Court upholds a sodomy conviction and says that it will discuss a point of error raised by the defendant, but doesn’t. The case later needs to be clarified because of another overlooked point in its rush to uphold the conviction.

1926 — A California appellate court upholds the crime against nature conviction of a man for consensual sex in a car. The court calls the act "one of the most repulsive degradations known to humanity."

1941 — The Georgia Court of Appeals upholds a sodomy conviction even though the witness contradicts the arresting officer.

1978 — The Tennessee Supreme Court rules that a previous crime against nature conviction can’t be used under the habitual offender law.

Source:

Calendar of Sodomy, September

Alexander the Great * 356 + 323 BC

When the film version of Alexander's life was released a few years ago, it was notable that his homosexual love life was largely edited out. Apologists excused this by claiming that his he was "not really gay", as he was married. Of course he was: in the classical world, marriage and sex (for men)did not co-incide as they are assumed to do today. Men from leadership and priviliged classes were expected to marry and produce heirs who would inherit their name and property. Sexual and emotional satisfaction, however, they might seek elsewhere. Alexander’s own father, Philip, was killed by a slighted male lover, Pausanius. In the classical world, marriage and male lovers were often complementary to each other, not necessarily in conflict.

Alexander, one of the greatest military leaders in all history, was indeed married - but also undoubtedly had passionate, intimate relationships with two men, Hephaestion and the eunuch slave, Bagoas. With Bagoas at least, the relationship was definitely sexual, although the evidence is less clear for Hephaestion.

Nevertheless, the intensity and passion of Alexander’s love for Hephaestion is undeniable, as was obvious to all contemporary observers.

One of them, Hephaestion, was clearly his lover. Alexander, like many ancient Greeks, cultivated an ideal of heroic friendship that did not exclude sexual expression. He carried with him on his conquests a copy of the Iliad, and sought to emulate its heroes. When he first crossed into Asia and reached Troy, he sacrificed on the tomb of Achilles while Hephaestion did the same on that of Patroclus.

So close did Alexander feel to Hephaestion that when the captured women of the Persian King's household mistakenly threw themselves at Hephaestion's feet rather than at his own, he found no offense in this and excused them by saying that his friend was another Alexander. Finally, his grief at the death of Hephaestion, one year before his own, was also--in its intensity and public display--to parallel that of the Homeric lovers.

The homosexual aspect of Alexander's life was so public that it could not be obfuscated, even at times of extremehomophobia. Alexander was a model for other homosexual or bisexual soldier-kings, such as Julius Caesar, Hadrian, and Frederick the Great. His devotion to his lover serves as a counterpoint to the sexual follies and frenzies of other homosexual historical figures such as Nero or Elagabalus.
-glbtq encyclopedia

Yet his undoubted sexual activities with men were no barrier to extraordinary military success, as this extract from the BBC makes clear:

Alexander III of Macedon, better known as Alexander the Great, single-handedly changed the nature of the ancient world in little more than a decade.

Alexander was born in the northern Greek kingdom of Macedonia in July 356 BC. His parents were Philip II of Macedon and his wife Olympias. Alexander was educated by the philosopher Aristotle. Philip was assassinated in 336 BC and Alexander inherited a powerful yet volatile kingdom. He quickly dealt with his enemies at home and reasserted Macedonian power within Greece. He then set out to conquer the massive Persian Empire.

Against overwhelming odds, he led his army to victories across the Persian territories of Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt without suffering a single defeat. His greatest victory was at the Battle of Gaugamela, in what is now northern Iraq, in 331 BC. The young king of Macedonia, leader of the Greeks, overlord of Asia Minor and pharaoh of Egypt became 'great king' of Persia at the age of 25.

Over the next eight years, in his capacity as king, commander, politician, scholar and explorer, Alexander led his army a further 11,000 miles, founding over 70 cities and creating an empire that stretched across three continents and covered around two million square miles. The entire area from Greece in the west, north to the Danube, south into Egypt and as far to the east as the Indian Punjab, was linked together in a vast international network of trade and commerce. This was united by a common Greek language and culture, while the king himself adopted foreign customs in order to rule his millions of ethnically diverse subjects.

Somebody should tell the guys at the Pentagon.

See also:
Matt and Andrej Komaysky LGBT biographies

Saturday, 10 September 2011

Bravehearts: LGBT Soldiers, Police, Adventurers and Explorers - from Matt & Andrej Biographies.

Queer men and women are found, and have always existed, in all walks of life - including those which appear superficially to stand in direct opposition to the standard stereotypes. The stereotypes in fact are culturally and historically specific, to distinct regions and eras. Until recently, USA publicly took the view that gay men and women were inherently unsuitable for military service - but some societies took the diametrically opposite view, that gay men were particularly good military material (in the Sacred Band of Thebes, for example, or among the Japanese Samurai).

Matt & Andrej Kowalsky "Biographies of Famous GLTB People (Or who tried it at least once...)" lists an extensive collection of short biographies, with an indication in the headline for each entry if the country of origin, dates and main occupation or claim to queer fame. The list below is a selection from the full listing of those who are described as soldiers, other armed forces, civilian navy or aviation, policemen, adventurers and explorers.

This page is limited to those who are no longer alive. For a companion listing of those who are listed as "living" (at least at the time of posting), see the entry at "It's a Queer World".

Canada
	Birch, James
	Markland, George Herchmer
	Marshall, George
China
	Chang Pao
France
	Bonneval, Claude Alexandre Comte de
	De Seytres, Hippolyte
	Gourgaud, Gaspard
	Napoleon I Bonaparte
	Nevers, Louis de Gonzague Duc de
Germany
	Henry, Prince of Prussia
Greece (Classical)
	Alexander the Great
Italy
	Gorani, Count Giuseppe
Palestine
	George, Saint
Portugal
	Magellan, Ferdinand
Rome
	Marcus Antonius
Russia
	Davydov, Vladimir (Bob)
	Durova, Nadezhda
	Makarov, Stepan
	Nevsky, Aleksandr
Spain
	Erauso, Doña Catalina de
	Fernández de Córdoba, Gonzalo
UK
	Esher, Viscount
	Fitzgerald, Oswald
	Gordon, Charles George
	Hitchin, Charles
	McNally, Eddie
USA
	Berg, Vernon "Copy"
	Bolt, Frank Lucas
	Buffalo Calf Road Woman
	Daly, Jo
	Enslin, Lt. Gotthold Frederick
	Hoover, J. Edgar
	MacDonald, Sir Hector Archibald
	Maclean, Donald
	Matlovich, Leonard
	McCosker, Edward
	Noyce, Wilfred

Related Posts

Pharaoh Neferkare (Pepi II) and his lover, General Sisene
Pharoah Akhenaten (c.1350 BCE) and his lover. General Smenkhkare
Harmodius & Aristogiton: Gay Soldiers at the Foundation of Democracy
Sacred Band of Thebes: Gay lovers as the military ideal
Alcibiades 450?-404BC
Anytus 4th C BCE
Philip II of Macedon 359-336BCE
Alexander the Great 356-323BCE and Hephasteion

Sodomy in History: September 10

September 10

1926 — The Nevada Supreme Court reverses the sodomy conviction of a man because there was no proof of penetration.

Source:

Calendar of Sodomy, September

LGBT "Activists", from Matt & Andrej Biographies.

Matt & Andrej Kowalsky "Biographies of Famous GLTB People (Or who tried it at least once...)" lists an extensive collection of short biographies, with an indication in the headline for each entry if the country of origin, dates and main occupation or claim to queer fame. The list below is a selection from the full listing of those who are described as "activists" or social reformers, who are no longer alive.

For a companion listing of those who are listed as "living" (at least at the time of posting), see the entry at "Ir's a Queer World").

Austria
	Handl, Michael	Activist
Brazil
	de Oliveira, Francisco	Activist
	Mascarenhas, João António de Souza	Activist
Canada
	Coates, Dr. Randy	AIDS researcher
	Courte, Bernard René	Activist, writer
	Egan, Jim	Activist
	Flood, Maurice	Activist
	Hislop, George	Activist
	Hodder, Wilson	Activist
	Irwin, Maureen	Social activist, lobbysit GLTB rights
	Merrill, Michael	Gay activist
France
	Ignasse, Gérard Bach	Activist, lecturer
	Meyer-Genton, Jean Pierre	Activist
Germany
	Brand, Adolf	Activist, publisher
	Friedlaender, Benedict	Gay rights advocate
	Heymann, Linda Gustava	Radical feminist, memoirist
	McLean, Sharley	Lesbian activist
Italy
	Consoli, Massimo	Activist
Netherlands
	Brongersma, Edward	Activist
	Manus, Rosa	Feminist, suffragist
	Michiels van Kessenich, Floris	Gay activist
Puerto Rico
	Capetillo Perone, Luisa	Feminist
Singapore
	Chew, Paddy	AIDS activist
South Africa
	Nkoli, Simon	Anti-apartheid, gay-rights & AIDS activist
Spain
	Cardin, Alberto	Essayist, activist
Sweden
	Hellman, Allan	Activist
Switzerland
	Meier, Karl "Rolf"	Gay activist
UK
	Carpenter, Edward	Reformer, poet, philosopher
	Cave, Dudley Scott	Gay rights campaigner
	Craig, Paul	Activist
	Hill, Octavia	Social reformer
	Mackworth, Margaret	Suffragette
	Mellors, Bob	Activist
USA
	Addams, Jane	Social reformer
	Anthony, Susan B.	Women's rights advocate - [+ Anna Dickinson]
	Baker, Donald F.	Activist
	Baker, Ken	Gay activist
	Ben, Lisa	Activist, singer/songwriter
	Blackwell, Alice Stone	Activist, feminist
	Boozer, Melvin	Activist, politician
	Call, Harold L.	Activist
	Cameron, Barbara	Activist
	Campbell, Bobbi	AIDS activist
	Channell, Carl "Spitz"	Fundraiser for Nicaraguan contras
	Chapman Catt, Carrie	Suffragist
	Cooke, Welmore Alfred	Activist
	Dewson, Mary "Molly"	Economist, political organizer
	Di Sabato, Joe	Activist
	Donaldson, Stephen	Activist
	Durham, Pat	Activist
	Ellis, Ruth	African-American activist
	Foster, Jim M.	Gay activist
	Gerber, Henry	Activist
	Gittings, Barbara	Lesbian activist, editor, bibliographer
	Hardwick, Michael	Activist
	Henningson, Burt	Activst
	Herzenberg, Joseph	Historian, political activist
	Hetrick, Emery	Activist, educator
	Hutchins, Grace	Labour-reform activist
	Inman, Richard A.	Gay activist
	Marot, Helen	Labor activist
	Martin, Robert	Activist
	Nyathi, Pangi	Gay activist

Friday, 30 September 2011

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Saturday, 10 September 2011