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. 

Are American Efforts on Gay Rights Backfiring in Africa?

While gay rights have made huge steps in the West, in Islamic countries and in Africa the situation remains abysmal.   In non-Islamic areas, American Christofascists have been busy exporting anti-gay animus and playing upon the ignorance of the local populations where those who seemingly know no accurate history are to stupid to grasps that anti-gay laws and discrimination were colonial imports from European powers, especially Great Britain.  Aiding them is the Roman Catholic Church which continues to vilify gays and inflict its 13th century mindset on sexuality on its flock, many of who are too poorly educated to realize that are being told lies and falsehoods.  As noted before, if one wants to see the poison spread literally across the globe by Christian missionaries, read "The Origins and Role of Same-Sex Relations in Human Societies" by James Neill.  It is a scholarly work with much research behind it and it truly underscores the ignorance and idiocy of those who claim homosexuality is a western import.  The New York Times as a lengthy piece on the sad state of affairs in Africa.  Here are excerpts:

After an anti-gay law went into effect last year, many gay Nigerians say they have been subjected to new levels of harassment, even violence.

They blame the law, the authorities and broad social intolerance for their troubles. But they also blame an unwavering supporter whose commitment to their cause has been unquestioned and overt across Africa: the United States government.

“The U.S. support is making matters worse,” said Mike, 24, a university student studying biology in Minna, a town in central Nigeria who asked that his full name not be used for safety reasons. “There’s more resistance now. It’s triggered people’s defense mechanism.”

Four years ago, the American government embarked on an ambitious campaign to expand civil rights for gay people overseas by marshaling its diplomats, directing its foreign aid and deploying President Obama to speak before hostile audiences.

America’s money and public diplomacy have opened conversations and opportunities in societies where the subject was taboo just a few years ago. But they have also made gay men and lesbians more visible — and more vulnerable to harassment and violence, people on both sides of the gay rights issue contend.

“The Nigerian law was blowback,” said Chidi Odinkalu, chairman of Nigeria’s National Human Rights Commission and the senior legal officer for the Africa Program of the Open Society Justice Initiative, which supports gay rights on the continent. “You now have situations of gay men being molested on the streets or taunted. That was all avoidable.”

Violence against gay Nigerians has increased significantly, according to the country’s National Human Rights Commission. Most are attacked in the open by groups of men, some of whom call themselves “cleansers,” rights groups say.

But victims often do not report attacks for fear of being outed. Even men infected with H.I.V. are often reluctant to seek treatment at hospitals, fearing that the authorities will be called, said Stella Iwuagwu, executive director of the Center for the Right to Health, an H.I.V. patient and rights group based in Lagos.

The United States’ role comes as longstanding foes in its culture wars continue to move their fight to Africa. Many private supporters of equal rights for gay people in the United States, after landmark successes at home, are increasing their funding of gay causes abroad, especially in Africa.

American conservative and Christian groups have also turned to Africa, where the vast majority of people still share their opposition to same-sex relations and marriage.

Gay Africans are becoming increasingly caught in the American culture battles being waged in Africa, said the Rev. Kapya Kaoma, an Anglican priest from Zambia who is a researcher at the Massachusetts-based Political Research Associates.

“When two elephants fight, the grass will suffer,” said Mr. Kaoma, who has documented the ties between American evangelicals and the anti-gay movement in Africa. “This is what’s happening in Africa. African L.G.B.T. persons are just collateral damage to U.S. politics on both ends.”

[T]ying developmental assistance to gay rights has fueled anger across the continent. After Uganda’s president signed a tough anti-gay law last year, for example, the Obama administration announced that some aid money for the Ugandan police and health agencies would be cut off or redirected.

“This is an abuse of power, and that’s why many are turning around and saying, ‘Keep your money,’ ” said Father George Ehusani, former secretary general of the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, adding that Nigerian Catholic charities had stopped applying for American government grants that promote gay rights.

The real enemy of LGBT equality is fundamentalist religion of all stripes which, in my view, is a cancer that needs to be eradicated whether it goes under the banner of Catholicism, Evangelical Christianity, or Islam.  No matter the name employed, it is a true force for evil.

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.

“The Origins and Role of Same-Sex Relations in Human Societies” - Interim Thoughts

I mentioned recently that a friend had given the husband and me a book entitled “The Origins and Role of Same-Sex Relations in Human Societies” which looks at the existence and role of homosexuality and bisexuality throughout history.  I am still reading the book, but the main take away so far is that homosexuality and bisexuality were recognized and accepted throughout the world and throughout diverse cultures.  All of that changed when European Christians launched their global colonial conquest and with it their imposition of sexual mores derived from Church fathers who could be describes as neurotic at best and perhaps more correctly outright mentally ill.

Illustrative of the sexual freedom that seemingly existed is a  papyrus which is believed to be the oldest known depiction of sex on record. The papyrus, painted sometime in the Ramesside Period (1292-1075 B.C.E.), is known as the “Turin Erotic Papyrus” because of their “discovery” in the Egyptian Museum of Turin, Italy.  One article notes the ancients' approach to sex:

The number of sexual positions the papyrus illustrates—twelve in all—“fall somewhere between impressively acrobatic and unnervingly ambitious,” one even involving a chariot. Apart from its obvious fertility symbols, writes archaeology blog Ancient Peoples, the papyrus also has a “humorous and/or satirical” purpose, and probably a male audience—evidenced, perhaps, by its resemblance to 70’s porn: “the men are mostly unkept, unshaven, and balding […], whereas the women are the ideal of beauty in Egypt.”

[T]he culture reveled in a stylized ritual sexuality quite different from our own limited mores. Sacred temple prostitutes held a privileged position and mythological narratives incorporated unbiased descriptions of homosexuality and transgenderism. Ancient Egyptians even expected to have sex after death, attaching fabricated organs to their mummies. The above applies mainly to a certain class of Egyptian. As archaeologist David O’Connor points out, the Turin Erotic Papyrus’ high “artistic merit” marks it as within the provenance of “an elite owner and audience.”

The inscriptions are also an important part of the papyrus because they indicate us that it is not just the men that are enjoying themselves; 

So what changed?  The Catholic Church's bizarre abhorrence of all things sexual that developed in the Middle Ages.  Who was behind this bizarre obsession?  Leading Church fathers who were disturbed to say the least.  Here are some examples of how these very sick, bizarre men viewed sex:

". . . .the reformers as a group considered sex and other pleasurable experiences tainted by evil and a potent source of sin.  They were not merely suspicious of sex, but hostile to any sexual activity at all save for marital relations undertaken expressly and consciously to conceive a child.  . . . . were determined to limit marital sex to the absolute minimum, and on penalizing extra-marital sex as harshly as possible."

" . . .  married couples were allowed sexual intercourse under only three conditions: 1) for the explicit purpose of conceiving a child; 2) to prevent the temptation of marital infidelity; and 3) to yield to the unrelenting demands -  most likely sinful - of their partner. Even then the sexual intercourse could not be performed in the daytime, had to be in the "missionary position', could not be performed on Sundays, Wednesdays or Fridays - removing the equivalent of five months of the year - and was not to be performed during Lent or other forbidden times. . . All other sexual activity was categorically condemned."

"To assist the couple in their performance of intercourse with as little pleasure as possible, therefore, a device, chemise cagoule, was invented a heavy nightshirt with a hole strategically placed to allow the husband to impregnate his wife with as little bodily contact possible."

"In [St. Peter] Damian's mind, sex was a "violation, sacrilege, profanition, contagion, or corruption. Sex is never the product of love, only of animal lust"  Damian's hatred of sex extended even to loathing of the human body which he called "hideous putrefaction and filth," and consumed by lust.  . . . as clerical reform progressed in the 12th and 13th centuries, Peter Damian's  attitude to sex was to set the tone for the writings on sexual morality of the Church's most influential moral leaders."

I will provide other thoughts as I move through the portion of the book aptly entitled"Sexual Neurosis in Western Society."  These Church fathers belonged in mental wards, not in positions to dictate morality to others.

The Origins and Role of Same-Sex Relations in Human Societies

Last evening, two friends - both historians - gave a dinner party for the husband and me as a "wedding gift."  The group also included four other friends and we had a delightful time.  An additional gift was a book entitled "The Origins and Role of Same-Sex Relations in Human Societies," the end product of over ten years of historical research.  Among other things, the book concludes 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.  I look forward to reading the book and will share my thoughts.  Meanwhile, here are some interview highlights with the book's author:

A principal reason the homosexual side of human sexuality became non-normalised in Western society is, indeed, as you suggest, due to the power and influence of monotheistic religions, not so much because of their rise, but because of the peculiar track the Christian Church took in its early centuries in attempting to define nature and the role of human sexuality within it.  Much of Christian sexual moral doctrine arose not from scripture, as many believe, but from the porridge of dualistic cults and philosophies that abounded in the late Roman Empire, and the conviction derived from them by Saint Augustine and other early church leaders that sexual pleasure is evil, and that therefore the only reason sexual activity could be justified was for the specific purpose of procreation. An obvious correlate of this dictum is that any non-procreative activity, be it intercourse using birth control, homosexuality, masturbation or even a man making love to his wife out of affection rather than for the specific purpose of producing a child, was unnatural, and therefore a sin. 

While this core belief on the evil associated with sex and the natural purpose of sex dominated
Christian moral thinking on sexuality well into the 20^th century, it actually took until the late Middle Ages in Europe before the church was finally able to exert the forces necessary to enforce its anti-sexual morality among the European population, and that only after several centuries of sometime very violent suppression.  Because of the severe opprobrium that then became attached to the homosexual side of human sexuality—the sin we dare not name—and the extreme phobia Western society developed towards it, society in effect went into total denial about its existence.

Hundreds of anthropological studies over the last century, covering tribal people in every part of the world, have shown that same-sex behaviour in one form or another was virtually universal among indigenous tribal peoples before westernization and the arrival of Christian missionaries.  Considering the prevalence of ambisexual practices among those tribal cultures unaffected by Western moral influences, there is considerable irony in the assumption of many scholars until only recently that homosexuality is a product of decadent urbanized societies and unknown among tribal peoples.

Among traditional Native-American peoples in contemporary America, same-sex relationships among adolescents are taken for granted and are tolerated as long as the individuals settle down and get married by their mid-20s.

[E]arly Christian leadership did not rely on scripture as the basis for its moral teaching on sex, but drew on two pagan sources: 1) the Stoic concept of “nature”, which led to the Christian concept of a natural purpose of sex—procreation, and 2) the anti-material, anti-sexual convictions of dualist cults and pagan Neo-Platonism—the latter was a heavy influence on St. Augustine who was the most influential of the Church Fathers in the development of Christian sexual morality.  Because non-procreative sexuality was “unnatural” and therefore sinful, the only legitimate sexual expression was heterosexual, hence the “Heterosexual Myth”.

Pope to Travel to Uganda to Worship Martyrs who Rejected Gay Sex

Gay Star News is reporting that according to Ugandan officials Pope Francis is scheduled to travel to Uganda in October to honor martyrs who were executed in the 1880's for refusing to have gay sex with the then ruling king.  The martyrs were canonized in 1964 by Pope Paul VI. Apparently, the Vatican has not yet confirmed the Pope will be going to Uganda.  If in fact Francis does attend this event, those like Andrew Sullivan and other liberals having near swoons over Pope Francis' supposed change in the Catholic Church's approach to gays, will have to do a dramatic reassessment of their views.  Frankly, it would be nice if this turned out to merely be a stunt by Uganda in an effort to find authority for its newly enacted horrific anti-gay law.  The irony, however, is that the whole martyrdom story line defeats the current claims by ignorant religious leaders that homosexuality was a European import.   Once again, knowing accurate history is the enemy of the "godly folk."  Here are details from Gay Star News: 

Pope Francis will be flying to Uganda in order to worship Uganda martyrs who rejected gay sex from the country's former king.  The head of the Catholic Church will visit Uganda in October, which has recently enacted one of the worst anti-gay laws in the world.

Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi has confirmed the Pope has accepted the invitation to attend the celebrations to mark 50 years since the canonisation of the Uganda Martyrs.  The Vatican is yet to confirm the visit.

The martyrs, who were killed between 1885 and 1887, refused to have sex with the gay King Mwanga II of Bugunda, now part of Uganda.  In a report released by Sexual Minorities Uganda, it proved it was not true that homosexuality is ‘un-African’ and it existed long before British colonialized the country in 1894.

Researcher Ambrose Mukasa said: ‘It is documented that King Mwanga II had many young men in his palace and was sodomizing them at his will.

‘When missionaries introduced Christianity and some of the young men were baptized and taught about the dangers of homosexuality, they started denying Mwanga the usual “pleasure” he used to get from them.

‘Mwanga reportedly became annoyed and went wild wondering how mere pages had started disobeying him. He clashed with the missionaries.  ‘He instructed the killing of all the young men who disobeyed him – with the executions taking place between 1885 and 1887.

‘The murdered young men were considered martyrs because they resolved to die for their new religion rather than surrendering their bodies to the king.’

The martyrs were canonized in 1964 by Pope Paul VI. - See more at: http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/pope-will-fly-uganda-worship-martyrs-who-rejected-gay-sex280214#sthash.y9MRhUcu.dpuf

Abraham Lincoln – Was He Gay? Part 2

I recently did a post on the growing number of historians who are concluding that Lincoln was gay or bisexual. A variation of the post was cross posted to The Bilerico Project where it created quite a bit of commentary and several personal attacks in comments that I did not approve for publication because of their nastiness. I was particularly surprised by the number of comments by authors who were incensed that I referred to Lincoln as “gay” as opposed to “bisexual.” My own experiences as a closeted gay man who married were likewise disparaged and I was accused of “gaywashing” history. Apparently, to some, the fact that one has had sex with someone of the opposite sex – regardless of what thoughts and fantasies were going through one’s mind during the process – makes one bisexual no matter what. Indeed, to these folks it was nothing short of heresy to recognize that someone gay can have sex with an opposite sex partner – even if it is merely only the result of trying to do “what’s expected by church and society” - and still be GAY. I continue to believe that the issue IS relevant and it is through accurate history that minds can sometimes be opened and prejudice defeated.
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Since writing the post, a reader forwarded me a copy of the last segment of William Hanchett’s piece in the Lincoln Herald (which apparently is not available on line, but I can e-mail a copy to anyone who wants a copy). Hanchett has been described as one of the foremost authorities on the Lincoln assassination and in this article he challenges those who have had a knee jerk reaction to suggestions that Lincoln was homosexual as follows:
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The thesis C. A. Tripp presents in The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln requires either that it be refuted or that Lincoln biography and American history be revised. So far it has been denounced but not refuted. . . . . they have shown no interest in testing Lincoln's character and biography against the Tripp thesis. As editor Lewis Gannett put it, "If Tripp is right, they are wrong in a very big way,"
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Hanchett then proceeds to review some of the evidence himself and makes the case that, indeed, Lincoln could well have been a homosexual in his sexual orientation. He also dismantles some of the myths and stories often cited to prove Lincoln’s interest in women. He also looks deeply at the secret memorandums of Lincoln’s one time law partner, William Herndon and Herndon’s motivations to protect Lincoln’s memory – as well as the political considerations that argued for keeping Lincoln a heterosexual for posterity. Here are some highlights:
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In 1887 Williarn Herndon wrote a correspondent that "I know a good deal about Lincoln - rnore than I dare state in a book."' Near the beginning of his great collaboration with Jesse Weik, he told his young associate that there were things about Lincoln he could not tell him, "especially in ink." In another letter to Weik, Herndon observed that though Lincoln was informal and familiar, he kept people at a distance . . . . When someone asked him if he thought Lincoln would have wanted his life to be investigated, he responded with an emphatic No, Lincoln, he explained, was "a hidden man and wished to keep his own secrets." Herndon thus recognized his investigations into Lincoln's personal history were trespasses on the sacred ground of his friend's privacy.
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Whatever he thought of the ultimate disposition of his material, he knew that the secret of Lincoln's sex life was safe with him. He would withhold knowledge of it indefinitely or forever rather than release it prematurely. In Lincoln's interests, he would not only suppress evidence by confining it to his secret Memo books, he might even invent history. It is conceivable that that is what he was doing when he seized upon a few fragments of information about Lincoln's friendship with Ann Rutledge and turned them into a love story whose tragic ending darkened the rest of Lincoln's life. . . . . For most of the years of his mature life, marriage would provide adequate cover, as it did for many other men hiding the same secret.
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It may even have occurred to Herndon that in giving Lincoln a heterosexual past, he was also protecting the achievements of his presidency. For if Lincoln's enemies - unreconstructed rebels, diehard Copperheads, opponents of the centralization of power in Washington - sensed in some post-Reconstruction era that their causes not lost after all, they might sooner or later seek to undo the accomplishments of his presidency, what better way to turn back the clock than by discrediting the president responsible for the wartime revolutions in American government and society, and how better discredit him than by exposing his personal immorality? A major rewriting of history would necessarily follow, and the image of a gay Lincoln transformed from a national icon to a national embarrassment would be helpless to do anything about it.

What Women Want: Gay Male Sex

Sometimes I guess I live under a rock or something. The newest issue of Out Magazine has a long article (sorry, it's not available online) on what is apparently the newest rage with many straight women: gay romance novels with lots of male to male sex and romance. Even more surprising, many of the top authors of the genre are outwardly straight married women. One such author is Alex Beecroft, an English housewife turned author who wrote the apparently extremely popular False Colors, set in the 1700's and featuring beautiful sailors. Who would have known? The trend has been going on for a while and may be another aspect of homosexuality going more mainstream - especially if this is what more and more middle class straight women are reading. An article in the Baltimore City Paper looked at the phenomenon over a year ago. Here are some highlights:
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The romance novel, a static and predictable genre, is undergoing an evolution of sorts: storylines written by straight women for straight women . . . about gay men. Gay men are allowed to read them, of course--there's no gender ID check. But the authors want the books shelved with romance novels, not gay literature, and they are straight women writing the stories that they would want to read. Alex Beecroft, the author of False Colors, an "m/m romance" set in the mid-18th century British navy, doesn't see what the big deal is. "Whether your romance is m/f or m/m, love is the same," she writes in an e-mail from her home in England, "two people, heart and soul, fighting for something beautiful, something worth fighting for." Yes, but is it really a romance novel if there's not a heaving bosom?
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It seems strange on the surface--gay male romance novels for straight women--but maybe this is just the latest iteration of the age-old against-the-odds, forbidden fruit love story. Whether it's the Capulet who can't be with the Montague, the princess who can't be with the stable boy, the beauty who can't be with the beast, the countless Hollywood leading couples who can't be together because someone is getting ready to marry another, or the two Georgian naval officers who will be hanged if they are discovered, isn't it the same basic story inspiring the romantic imaginations of women through the ages? They can't be together, so they must.

Another thing that seems strange is a straight woman writer who would leave her sex out of her love stories. Who is this woman with the gender-neutral name? Beecroft is a married mother of two. It was her idea, not some editor's or publisher's, to write these kind of stories. "I find it curious that people are surprised that a straight woman would want to write m/m romance, because for me it's such a natural thing," she writes. "It wasn't suggested to me by anyone. In fact, I started imagining stories in which the two heroes would get together pretty much as soon as I hit puberty."
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Beecroft also sees her stories as opportunities for her to play with and transcend traditional gender roles. "M/M romance can be used to examine relationships which don't suffer from the same sort of built in power imbalances and gender role constraints that make m/f romance such a minefield," she writes.
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So the evolution is underway, complete with all the false starts and dead ends change brings. But the change is deceptively superficial. Whether m/m or m/f or f/f, the prosaic romance novel is still about escaping with characters who are, above all, true to themselves. Whether they have heaving bosoms or straining packages is of less consequence than whether they are heaving and straining against an oppressive society that would keep them apart. And if their equipment matches, the oppression multiplies, and the romantic-at-heart just might root for them even more.

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Since I like historical novels and tend to be a romantic, yours truly may have to check the local Barnes & Noble to see what they're stocking. Of course, there's always Amazon as a fall back.

The History of Homosexual Acceptance

The professional Christians repeatedly make the claim that societies and cultures have never accepted homosexuality and that marriage of one man and one woman has been the norm for "5,000 years of human history." Like so much of what these theocratic hate merchants say, these claims are simply not true. The truth is that homosexuality has been a feature of human culture since earliest history. Generally and most famously in ancient Greece, certain forms of erotic attraction and sexual pleasure between males were often an ingrained, accepted part of the cultural norm. The love spoken of by Socrates and Plato among others involved same sex love, not heterosexual love.

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Moreover, many historical figures, including Socrates, Lord Byron, Edward II, Hadrian, Julius Caesar, Michelangelo, Donatello, Leonardo da Vinci, and Christopher Marlowe had romantic or sexual relationships with people of their own sex. Here's a sampling of the history of homosexuality through the ages and in different parts of the world and examples of how Jewish tribalism continued into the Christian anti-gay obsession ran headlong into practices in other parts of the world.

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AFRICA: Though often ignored or suppressed by European explorers and colonialists, homosexual expression in native Africa was also present and took a variety of forms. Anthropologists Stephen Murray and Will Roscoe reported that women in Lesotho engaged in socially sanctioned "long term, erotic relationships," named motsoalle. E. E. Evans-Pritchard also recorded that male Azande warriors (in the northern Congo) routinely took on boy-wives between the ages of twelve and twenty, who helped with household tasks and participated in sex with their older husbands. The practice had died out by the early 20th century, after Europeans had gained control of African countries, but was recounted to Evans-Pritchard by the elders to whom he spoke.

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THE AMERICAS: Among indigenous peoples of the Americas prior to European colonization, the most common form of same-sex sexuality seems to center around the figure of the Two-Spirit individual. Typically the two-spirit individual was recognized early in life, was given a choice by the parents to follow the path, and if the child accepted the role then the child was raised in the appropriate manner, learning the customs of the gender it had chosen. Two-spirit individuals were commonly shamans and were revered as having powers beyond those of ordinary shamans.

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Homosexual and transgender individuals were also common among other pre-conquest civilizations in Latin America, such as the Aztecs, Mayans, Quechas, Moches, Zapotecs, and the Tupinaba of Brazil. The Spanish conquerors were horrified to discover "sodomy" openly practiced among native peoples, and attempted to crush it out by subjecting the "berdaches" as the Spanish called them to severe penalties, including public execution and burning.

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EAST ASIA: In East Asia, same-sex love has been referred to since the earliest recorded history. Early European travelers were taken aback by its widespread acceptance and open display. None of the East Asian countries today have specific legal prohibitions against homosexuality or homosexual behavior. . . . This same-sex love culture gave rise to strong traditions of painting and literature documenting and celebrating such relationships. In Thailand "ladyboys," have been a feature of Thai society for many centuries, and Thai kings had male as well as female lovers.

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EUROPE: Western documents concerning same-sex relationships are derived from ancient Greece. They depict a world in which relationships with women and relationships with youths were the essential foundation of a normal man's love life. Same-sex relationships were a social institution variously constructed over time and from one city to another. In ancient Rome, the emperors with the exception of Claudius took male lovers.

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During the Renaissance, rich cities in northern Italy were renowned for their widespread practice of same-sex love, engaged in by a considerable part of the male population and constructed along the classical pattern of Greece and Rome. . . . The relationships of socially prominent figures, such as King James I [reviser of what became the King James Bible] and the Duke of Buckingham, served to highlight the issue.

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MIDDLE EAST, SOUTH AND CENTRAL ASIA: Among many Middle Eastern Muslim cultures egalitarian or age-structured homosexual practices were, and remain, widespread and thinly veiled. The prevailing pattern of same-sex relationships in the temperate and sub-tropical zone stretching from Northern India to the Western Sahara is one in which the relationships were—and are—either gender-structured or age-structured or both. . . . In Persia homosexuality and homoerotic expressions were tolerated in numerous public places, from monasteries and seminaries to taverns, military camps, bathhouses, and coffee houses. In one period, male houses of prostitution (amrad khane) were legally recognized and paid taxes.

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SOUTH PACIFIC: In many societies of Melanesia, same-sex relationships were, until the middle of the last century, an integral part of the culture.

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In short, homosexuals have existed and been accepted throughout the majority of history in most parts of the world. One could even argue that it is the Christianist and orthodox Jewish anti-homosexual precepts which are the anomaly when the issue is viewed over time and around the world. Some other web sites with historical reviews of the acceptance and prevalence of same sex love are here, here and here.