Cherokee Nation: Gay-Marriage Law Is Traditional

Some time ago I cited a book called "The Origins and Role of Same-Sex Relations in Human Societies," that concluded that the tolerance, if not open acceptance of same sex relations, was the norm around the world prior to the arrival of Christian missionaries who, along with small pox and other diseases, a desire to oppress and conquer native cultures, often outright genocide, brought homophobia and animus toward those in same sex relationships.  Indeed, many who were in such relationships were put to death. The irony now, of course, is that cretins - I'm sorry, but in my view no other word applies - in parts of Africa and India for example, claim that homosexuality is a western import.  The truth is the exact opposite and it is the homophobia that they want to uphold that is the western import.   Given this true historic background, it is interesting that a recent ruling by the Cherokee nation affirming same sex relationships cited the fact that tradition within the tribe supported what would now be called gay marriage.  Here are highlights from Bloomberg:

The Cherokee Nation, one of the largest registered Native American tribes in the U.S., has officially decided to recognize same-sex marriage. The tribe, as a separate sovereign, isn’t bound by the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 2015 gay-marriage decision, Obergefell v. Hodges. But its judgment relies in part on evidence of historical recognition of same-sex relationships among Cherokees -- a basis for contemporary gay rights that is different from, and in some ways deeper than, the equality and dignity rationales that the Supreme Court used.

The history of how tribes have been treated in their interaction with the U.S. legal system is complex and often inconsistent -- usually to the detriment of the tribes. But the basic principle of “Indian law” is that tribes are considered sovereign nations: dependent on the U.S. and subject to congressional control in some respects, but entitled to exercise self-government.

Thus, tribes need not govern themselves democratically -- nor are they necessarily bound by the U.S. Constitution. Instead, basic rights in Indian country come from either the tribes’ own fundamental constitutional principles or the Indian Civil Rights Act, enacted by Congress in 1968.

The act includes guarantees of equal protection and due process of law, the same principles that are found in the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and that were the basis for the Obergefell decision.

[W]hen Todd Hembree, the attorney general of the Cherokee Nation, issued his binding gay marriage opinion last week, the Indian Civil Rights Act went unmentioned. The decision was based on the Constitution of the Cherokee Nation, which he described as “the supreme written will of the Cherokee people regarding the framework of their government.” Hembree mentioned Obergefell only to cite it in a footnote.

What’s perhaps most remarkable about the attorney general’s opinion is how it grounded its argument in Cherokee tradition. In a section titled “Perpetual Partnership and Marriage in the Cherokee Nation,” Hembree devoted significant attention to a ceremony of devotion that was traditionally performed between two men at an annual festival.

Hembree quoted in its entirety an eyewitness description from 1836 by John Howard Payne, a picaresque writer, composer and traveler. In Payne’s account, the ritual “sprang from a passionate friendship between young men” that led them “mutually to a solemn act of devotedness to each other.” The young men would engage in “silent interchange of garment after garment, until each was clad in the other’s dress.”

According to Hembree, “the relationship described in some respects would seem to parallel a modern-day same-sex marriage” -- and received “recognition by the other members of the tribe.”

The attorney general’s opinion also referred to a 19th century report on Cherokee customs that stated, “There were among them formerly men who assumed the dress and performed all the duties of women and who lives full lives in this manner.” This resonates with contemporaneous reports from many tribes, especially in the Great Plains, of men who lived as women. The anthropological literature long referred to them as “berdaches,” from a French word for the younger partner in a gay male relationship; today the preferred term is “two spirits.”

Hembree seemed to demonstrate to Cherokees that acceptance of same-sex relationships is a core element of their unique cultural and religious traditions.

Now that gay marriage is a legal right, the next challenge is to convince opponents that the best reading of their own traditions favors equal treatment of gay couples. The Cherokee nation’s attorney general is leading the way.

It's long past time that more nations and societies wake up to the reality that homophobia is a western Christian import, brough by the same missionaries that proved so disastrous for so many cultures.   Where you find hatred of others, all too often religion is at the core. 

Indian MP Vows to Continue to Fight Anti-Gay Bigotry

Opposition lawmaker Shashi Tharoor

India threw off British rule decades ago after World War II, yet like parts of Africa that continue decry colonialism, India cannot throw off the shackles of repressed and attitudes toward sexuality and sexual orientation imported by the fanatical Christian missionaries.  The irony, of course is that nowadays conservative Hindus support anti-gay attitudes not realizing that such attitudes are the result of British rule, not indigenous native attitudes.  As noted before, the scholar work "The Origins and Role of Same-Sex Relations in Human Societies" documents the fouls work of Christian missionaries across the globe in supplanting acceptance of homosexuality.  There are some in India who recognize the need to reject this imported societal poison.   One such individual is opposition lawmaker Shashi Tharoor who vows to continue the fight for LGBT equality and the repeal of anti-gay laws dating to British colonial rule.  a piece in Reuters looks at his efforts.  Here are highlights:

An Indian politician campaigning for gay sex to be legalised said on Monday he would continue his fight for the freedom and equality of sexual minorities despite attempts by members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party to thwart his efforts.

Opposition lawmaker Shashi Tharoor in December introduced a private member's bill in India's lower house of parliament seeking to amend a British colonial era law which punishes homosexual sex with up to 10 years imprisonment.


Normally opposition comes at the discussion stage, you don't prevent a bill being introduced by a private member, its uncollegial if nothing else," Tharoor told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview.

"But they did that and they succeeded, partly because prejudice sadly is still there in our society."
Seventy four members voted against the bill, said Tharoor, 21 in favour and one member abstained, making it impossible for him to even attempt a debate on the contents of the bill.

India's top court reinstated a ban on gay sex in 2013, ending four years of decriminalisation that had helped bring homosexuality into the open in the conservative country.

The law, which dates back to 1860, prohibits "carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal."

Activists say that since the ban on gay sex was reinstated, there has been a surge in reports of gangs, as well as police, intimidating, harassing, raping, blackmailing and extorting money from lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people.

There are no official figures on the number of cases. Most go unreported, say activists, as victims are too scared to report crimes to the police fearing Section 377 will be used against them. Tharoor said 578 people have been arrested since homosexuality was recriminalised.

Senior BJP leader and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said he personally believes gay sex should be decriminalised, but lawmakers are fearful of losing support in their largely conservative and religious constituencies.

Tharoor, who was a minister in the former Congress-led government and also a former United Nations diplomat, said he was not giving up his fight for India's LGBT community.

A petition requesting Modi to amend the law has amassed around 25,000 signatures on change.org, said Tharoor, adding that he planned to reach out to sympathisers from the BJP and resubmit the bill in the next session of parliament in February.

"I think a debate will help actually sensitise the nation to the issue at stake. I have long argued that this is not about sex but about freedom. It's about our constitutional values," said Tharoor.  "It is indeed about getting the government out of people's bedrooms."

I have many clients originally from India many of whom know I am gay.  To them, it is a non-issue, perhaps in part because here same "godly Christians" who hate me hate them as well and view them as destined to Hell.  Ironically, a number of them want the husband and me to go to India with them sometime.  However, with Section 377 still on the books, I would be apprehensive. Repealing Section 377 would not only be a triumph of freedom, but also a potential boon to tourism.

The Castration of Alan Turing, Britain’s Code-Breaking WWII Hero

I continue to be pissed off that the movie "The imitation Game" about gay WWII Hero Alan Turning still is not playing anywhere in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia.  Virginia truly needs a law like that just enacted in California that mandates the teaching of gay history in public schools.  Of course, enacting such a law in Virginia will remain impossible as long as the Republican Party of Virginia remains a bunch of sniveling whores who willingly prostitute themselves to The Family Foundation and its allied hate groups which seek to turn back the clock to the 1950's both in terms of gay rights and civil rights for minorities.   Two pieces underscore why this movie needs to be shown nationwide in all communities.  The first comes from Queerty and reveals the thoughts of Benedict Cumberbatch who plays Turning in the movie.  Here are excerpts:

The feeling you have for the man after getting to know him through the duration of the film is really exacerbated by the frustration and anger, not just at the injustice served him, but also at the fact that, why don’t I know this story? It seems unbelievable that someone who is a war hero, someone who is the father of the modern computer age — and a gay icon — could remain in such relative obscurity to the scale of his achievements in his brief time on this planet. 

One of the main reasons I was really attracted to playing him was to try and bring his story to as wide an audience as possible. It still seems unfathomable to me that Turing is not on bank notes; that he’s not on the front cover of a textbook. I’m serious. I mean, Newton and Darwin are on bank notes for Christ’s sake. 

This man, as acknowledged by Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and other titans of the digital age… was the forefather of modern computing. He was an extraordinarily important man. I just think he should be celebrated as a social-cultural hero as well as someone of extraordinary importance in the scientific and modern worlds.”

Pretty strong words, but 100% on point.  The reason for Turning's obsurity can be spelled out in one word: religion.  The Christofascist and their willing prostitutes censor anything and everything that might expose the lies of their anti-gay propaganda and sick religious beliefs.  A second piece in The Daily Beast follows up on earlier post on the injustice done to Turning.  Here are highlights:

The Imitation Game, the new movie in which Benedict Cumberbatch plays the prodigal computer pioneer Alan Turing, opens an uncomfortable window on the still-festering swamp of British sexual behavior. When I saw the movie in London there was a palpable frisson of disgust from the audience on learning how Turing had been treated by the country he had served with enormous distinction in World War II.

In 1952, Turing was found guilty on three counts of “gross indecency contrary to Section II of the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885”—a law that had its first sensational effect in the trial of Oscar Wilde.  Turing had not contested the charges—he gave an explicitly detailed admission of them. He had invited a 19-year-old drifter named Arnold Murray to his house and they had had consensual sex.

Murray had not made a complaint—Turing had triggered a police investigation himself by reporting a petty burglary at his house that, it transpired, had been carried out by an acquaintance of Murray’s.

Turing was given the choice of either prison or submitting himself to the officially mandated nostrum of the day: “cure” by what Turing himself described as “organo-therapy,” chemicals believed to turn homosexuals into heterosexuals. He was prescribed a course of hormone pills that caused him to grow breasts and rendered him impotent.

I realized that the effect of this barbarity on the movie audience around me was a measure of how distant the world of such a moral regime now seems.

Turing’s term of probation ended in April 1953. In the final months of his treatment, the doctors ended the course of pills and inserted an implant of hormones into one of his thighs. Correctly suspecting the effects would be lasting, Turing removed it, although by then the fundamental physical effects were irreversible.  Despite the publicity the case brought to them, Turing’s employers at the University of Manchester appointed Turing a Readership in the theory of computing that guaranteed him work for at least ten years.

Nonetheless, Turing killed himself on June 7, 1954, in a deliberately prepared way, by eating a cyanide-laced apple.

What happened to Turning was horrible - I would dare say criminal and monstrous - but what is disturbing is the realization that Turning was but one of countless hundreds of thousands - if not millions - of gays tortured and/or killed over the centuries thanks to the poisonous beliefs disseminated by Christian missionaries around the globe.  As noted in prior posts, the book "The Origins and Role of Same-Sex Relations in Human Societies," demonstrates that acceptance of homosexuality and bisexuality on the part of much of society historically have been the norm - just as it is in many other parts of the animal kingdom - and that it was the rise of the Roman Catholic Church that lead to homophobia as we know it today.  The beliefs of the Christofascists and the Vatican need to be shown for the lies that they are and defeated and thrown on the trash heap of history where they belong.