Hey hay! Ho ho! GAY OPRESSION HAS GOT TO GO!!
Let me start by introducing, and plugging myself. My name is Wolf and I run the LGBT Blog, Back2Stonewall.com. I do have to admit I was very surprised when the great and mighty Rude One himself emailed me and asked me to be a guest blogger at the Rude Pundit this week. Not only because of the fact that I I'm just a angry queer with a snarky sense of humor and I really thought I only had about 10 readers, but to be included with such illustrious LGBT blogging company this week such as Pam Spaulding of Pam’s House Blend, Jim Burroway of Box Turtle Bulletin, Michael Petrelis of Petrelis Files, and Monica Roberts of Transgriot is just mindblowing for a relatively new blogger like me. And I am humbled but will do my militant gay best. (I suppose Andy Towle of Towleroad was busy but hell I ain’t proud I’ll take it!)
So for the past few days I've been wondering about what to post about when I came across this little bit of revisionist history bullshit that’s being spread by the nasty little anti-gay group The National Organization For Marriage.
REALLY? Well most actual human beings other than those "creatures" at The National Organization for marriage do know that LGBT’s have been persecuted. But do people really know to what extent? Everyone knows about the murders of Matt Shepard and Harvey Milk and the current gay bashings and violence upon the LGBT community but how many people know exactly how long our persecution has been happening, and how many of us have been imprisoned or killed, or the fact that the persecution in most cases leads back to certain groups?
So lets take a jump back in history and start off about 1700 YEARS ago and look at some of (and believe me not all of) of the persecution that we the LGBT community have endured through the ages, and how in many cases it leads back to oldest organized crime family in history. No not the Soprano's. RELIGION.
342 AD – The first law against same-sex marriage was promulgated by the Christian emperors Constantius II and Constans (It's the Christians!)
390- 405 – In the year 390, the Christian emperors Valentinian II, Theodosius I and Arcadius declared homosexual sex to be illegal and those who were guilty of it were condemned to be burned alive in front of the public and Nonnus' Dionysiaca is the last known piece of literature for nearly 1,000 years to celebrate homosexual passion. (The Fucking Christians AGAIN!)
498 – In spite of the laws against gay sex, the Christian emperors continued to collect taxes on male prostitutes until the reign of Anastasius I, who finally abolishes the tax in favor of sampling of the best men. (And as you see the fucking HYPOCRITICAL Christians and as you can see they haven’t changed much in over 1500 years)
589 – The Visigothic kingdom in Spain, is converted from Arianism to Catholicism. This conversion leads to a revision of the law to conform to those of Catholic countries. These revisions include provisions for the persecution of gays and Jews (Do I even have to say it?)
1120 – Baldwin II of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, convenes the Council of Nablus to address the vices within the Kingdom. The Council calls for the burning of individuals who perpetually commit sodomy
1250-1300 – Homosexual activity radically passes from being completely legal in the most of Europe to incurring the death penalty in most European states
1232 – Pope Gregory IX starts the Inquisition in the Italian City-States. Some cities called for banishment and/or amputation as punishments for 1st- and 2nd-offending sodomites and burning for the 3rd or habitual offenders. - 1260 – In France, first-offending sodomites lost their testicles, second offenders lost their member, and third offenders were burned. Women caught in same-sex acts could be mutilated and executed as well.
1370s – Jan van Aersdone and Willem Case were two men executed in Antwerp in the 1370s. The charge against them was gay sex, which was illegal and strenuously vilified in medieval Europe..
1476 – Leonardo Da Vinci is charged with sodomy but no verdict is rendered in his trial.
1532 – Holy Roman Empire makes sodomy punishable by death/ And guess what? They kill more of us Homos!
1533 – King Henry VIII passes the Buggery Act 1533 making all male-male sexual activity punishable by death and then ]Mary Tudor ascends the English throne and removes all of the male-male sexual activity laws passed by Henry VIII. (“Maybe that’s why we say Oh Mary PLEASE!)
Between 1540 and 1700 The Spanish Inquisition begins. Sodomites were stoned, castrated, and burned., more than 1,600 people were prosecuted for sodomy.
1558 – Elizabeth I ascends the English throne and reinstates the sodomy laws. The BITCH! (They imprision and kill MORE Homo’s, of course)
1649 – The first known conviction for lesbian activity in North America occurs in March when Sarah White Norman is charged with "Lewd behaviour each with other upon a bed" with Mary Vincent Hammon in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Hammon was under 16 and not prosecuted. (Sarah wasn’t killed. Just banished)
1721 – Catherina Margaretha Linck is executed for female sodomy in Germany.
1779 – USA- In 1779 Thomas Jefferson (Proof that the ORIGINAL Tea Bagger was a homophobe) prepared a draft of Virginia’s criminal statute, envisaging that the punishment for sodomy should be castration. The bill read:
“Whosoever shall be guilty of rape, polygamy, or sodomy with a man or woman, shall be punished; if a man, by castration, a woman, by boring through the cartilage of her nose a hole of one half inch in diameter at the least.” (Virginia Bill number 64; authored by Jefferson; June 18, 1779 - PLEASE Note that there is nothing about adultery, inter-racial sex, or children out of wedlock mentioned. A Jefferson talent!).1828 – The term "Crime against nature" first used in the Criminal code in the United States.
1871 – Homosexuality is criminalized throughout the German Empire by Paragraph 175 of the Reich Criminal Code
1933 – The National Socialist German Workers Party bans homosexual groups. Homosexuals are sent to concentration camps. Nazis burn the library of Magnus Hirschfeld's Institute for Sexual Research, and destroy the Institute; Denmark and Philippines decriminalizes homosexuality. Homosexual acts are recriminalized in the USSR. In 1945, upon the liberation of Nazi concentration camps by Allied forces, those interned for homosexuality are not freed, but required to serve out the full term of their sentences under Paragraph 175; An estimated 15,000 - 45,000 homosexuals die in Concentration Camps.
1950 – The Organization for Sexual Equality, now Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights (RFSL), is formed in Sweden; East Germany partially abrogates the Nazis' emendations to Paragraph 175; The Mattachine Society, the first sustained American homosexual group, is founded in Los Angeles (YEA! Finally some GOOD NEWS!)
And this is just the TIP of the gay hating persecution iceberg. There are so many more cases of LGBT rape, torture, murder throughout the centuries that it’s insane and far too many to list here. But lets not skip imprisonments in mental institutions, the shock therapies, chemical castrations that were backed and performed by NOM’s buddies in the LDS Mormon Church in the 1970’s until the 1990’s And who could forget America’s own gay hating genocidial version Adolph Hitler of the 1980’s Ronald Reagan who is responsible for at least 20,849 (mostly gay) Americans who died of AIDS by the end of his second term when he finally stopped ignoring AIDS and finally spoke of it and who opened the doors let those FUCKING BIBLE THUMPING CHRISTIANS known as the Moral Majority into the front door of our goverment.
Now I’d be lying if I say we haven’t gained some ground in many countries. But unfortunately the USA is not one of them. It’s actually kind of mind boggling when you think of recent world events and compare them to the evolution of gay rights in America. Even Argentina which was once one of the most fascist countries in the world and was led by Madonna, I mean Juan and Eva Peron now will allow gay marriage and what do we have here in the USA? DOMA! In more than 30 countries, including U.S. allies such as Israel, Canada and the United Kingdom, gays and lesbians are allowed to openly serve in their country's military. And what do we have? DADT! And why is that? Because of supposed fucking “Christians” and religious groups like The National Organization for Marriage, Focus on the Family, The Family Research Council, The Mormon Church, and the oldest organized crime family in the world, The Catholic Church continue to persecute LGBT Americans, just as Christians have been doing for centuries and they won’t stop until we “disappear”.
So next time you see one of these bible thumping, bigoted, anti-gay assholes. Don’t be shy and just walk right up to them, look them in the eye, take a stand and tell them to “Shut the fuck up and to go hell”. Because they’re not going to stop their persecution by politically correct discussion’s or trying to change their “hearts and minds”. (The WORST strategy the LGBT Community has ever had because you can't change hate that comes from religion) They are dangerous. Their hatred of the LGBT community is in their blood, and it is their dogma of thier radical religious beliefs. And there will always be lemmings just as stupid, crazy and hateful as they are that will follow them and escalte the hate. And they won’t stop until ALL of us gay, straight, bi, transgendered, black, white, yellow, brown and fucking purple band together and STAND together despite our differences and let them agressively know that we aren’t going to take their bullshit anymore and turn a blind eye to to the their hateful legacy that has been flowing for centuries and has led to the deaths of so many.
I DID tell you that I was an angry queer. And is there any wonder why?
I just wish there were more like me because this Politically Correct bullshit is killing us.
**If you'd like to leave a comment please feel free to follow this link over to Back2Stonewall.com where this post will be crossposted.
