Same-Sex Love Common in Ancient Cultures

Ancient Greece has long been portrayed as a homosexual paradise for today's modern gays and lesbians. The most famous historic gay culture, Greek society normalized same-sex love among its male and female members. Homosexual relations were believed to be above the lower classes, reserved for the middle class and aristocracy. Although that piece of culture has since seen its demise, ancient Greek culture honored gay relations as a flourishing empire, a period when Lambda warriors, an army of homosexual male soldiers, successfully conquered neighboring lands. Many of the Greek gods and goddesses worshiped during that time embodied homosexual tendencies, such as Zeus with Ganymede and Apollo with his numerous male lovers. Lesbians of that era included the goddesses Diana and Camilla, and Sappho, a renowned poet living on the island of Lesbos. Transgendered beings also were represented during this period of Greek history: "...a bearded Venus was worshiped by male and female transvestites." Other rulers adopted transgendered personas, usually for reasons of power associated with the assumed gender.

Ancient Egypt Occupies Unique Place in History

An especially unique corner of the world in the archives of GLBT history is Egypt. The deities people worshiped, forcibly or not, were largely androgynous. Circa 1500 B.C.E., Queen Hatsepsut deposed the ruling Pharoah to govern the nation herself, usually in a male persona and referring to herself as "Son of the Son." This is odd, since women were held in relatively high status and normally did not need to go to such extreme measures to gain power.

In 1380 B.C.E., Egypt's gender-blending king, known as lkhnaton, allowed only the worship of the double-gendered Alton.

Bible Stories Tell of Hostility

Though thought almost highly of during the founding years of human civilization, an unsurpassably negative stigma was placed on homosexual of all sorts (most heavily on sodomy or sex between two men) that had not previously existed. Easily the most infamous passage from the Bible, specifically the Old Testament, was the story of Sodom and Gommorah, about how Jahveh destroyed the "evil" cities to pave the way for Christianity as he saw fit. This was supposedly the result of hedonism among the people of the cities, specifically sexually, but historians have speculated otherwise. In this story, Lot, supposedly a "good man," gave his daughters to soldiers to do whatever they pleased and then Lot himself committed incest.

Ruth, daughter-in-law of Naomi (a Hebrew circa 1312 B.C.E.), pledged her undying love to Naomi after the deaths of Naomi's husband and sons-in-law. Biblical scripture claims this lesbianism was not true, because both women were required to remarry. Ruth's grandson, David, professed his love to Israel's Prince Johnathan in a poem after Johnathan's death. The poem included the lines:

...thy love for me was wonderful,
Surpassing the love of women...

Strangely enough, although the Old Testament denounces homosexuality, it contains no other love stories, even those between men and women. Yet, in 550 B.C.E., men charged with the crime of anal sex were stoned to death. This was part of a very long list of taboos that are now ignored, yet for some reason, this particular taboo holds fast.

Enter the new Roman Empire, Jesus Christ and the New Testament. Probably, the most famous of the "dead Greeks and Romans" were Nero and his father, Caligula, a Roman emperor noted for his cruelty. Although Caligula engaged in sex with almost anything that was able, he was not considered a homosexual, because at that time a fast definition still had not been put on the lifestyle, only the act. Caligula was both a tyrant and murderer, which tarnished homosexuality. His son, Nero, was also a sexual deviant, though not quite as brutal, just more vain. At one point, Nero was actually married to a young man he had earlier castrated.

From the Bible, Saul of Tarsus authored many passages condemning homosexuality and promoting homophobia. Upon translation, however, it was later found that Saul had his own homosexual tendencies. The actual translation reads more accurately that nothing is in and of itself wrong, it is only wrong depending on the perspective of the beholder. It was even interpreted by some that Jesus taught that the Elect are free to do as they please because they are saved, just so long as their acts do not produce lasting outcomes (such as children) that may not later be saved. All sins are forgivable as long as one repents for them or is alive at the correct time in order to be "saved."

In 244 C.E. (current era), St. Tarcissus, a patron saint for gay Catholics who died at the age of 13 in the arms of a Christian soldier, was canonized.

In 380 C.E., Sappho was declared a nymphomaniac by churchmen, who then burned her verse. During her life, Sappho contributed to the universal library of love verse, composing some of the most renowned poetry homo- or heterosexual. To further bastardize her, stories were later invented about her love for a sailor.

Falls of Ancient Greece and Rome Bring Demise

With the Middle Ages and the falls of Greece and Rome, all previous traces of homosexuality were denounced between 390 and 393 C.E. Theophilus, a Christian patriarch, destroyed Alexandria's library, devastating its collections of gay and lesbian writing. Approximately 50 years later, Arabs destroyed what little remained of the ruined library.

In 520, Greek co-empresses Theodora and Justinian (although they forwarded women's rights) enacted several particularly severe anti-homosexual laws with harsh penalties, such as castration, torture and death for sodomy. This resulted in the Bishops of Rhodes and Diospolis being dragged to death through the streets of Constantinople. The co-empresses also closed Plato and Aristotle's schools in Athens, which reopened 100 years later.

Islam—a Study in Polar Contrasts

Islam, the last of the great world cultures to emerge, was a contradiction with regard to homosexuality. On one hand, The Qur’an condemned homosexuality unequivocally. And on the other, Muslim societies showed a great deal of tolerance toward men who loved men. Although Muhammad, writer of The Qur'an, condemned homosexual sex, his version of paradise included "seductive young boys as well as houris (maidens)."¹ The Qur’an also notes that a man will become pregnant and bear the expected Mahdi, a story that parallels the Bible's story of the Virgin Mary.

The tolerance shown toward men was not necessarily extended to women. About 790 C.E., two women in Baghdad engaging in lesbian sex were beheaded, even though the Muslim court was at one of its highest gay points. But poems written by Abu Nuwas, including The Arabian Nights, were largely addressed to a male lover and a lesbian friend, Jinnan.

Intro

8th - 14th Centuries