Homosexuality

“The view we take here is that there's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.” This was the view of the late Canadian Justice Minister, Pierre Trudeau, who later rose to become the 15th Prime Minister of Canada. A true maverick, who once did a pirouette behind the back of Queen Elisabeth II, Trudeau proposed a set of amendments to the Criminal Code, in 1967, which included easing the noose on homosexuals. Two years later the amendments were passed into the Criminal Code and homosexuality was legalized in Canada.

Gay, In?

Homosexuality has seemingly always been thought of as something unnatural, something immoral and repugnant. And it is this ideology that has seen homosexuals suffer various forms of persecution. Throughout history, there have been well-documented cases of homosexual persecution. But the peculiar thing, of which I am sure many would find astonishment in, is that there was a time when homosexuality was accepted.

Homosexuality was by large openly practised during the High Middle Ages. In fact, homosexuality seemed to have thrived in monasteries. Monks would pen erotic poems admiring the beauty of males. Bishop Marbod of Rennes (1035-1123) penned the following poem.

The Unyielding Youth

Horace composed an ode about a certain boy
Whose face was so lovely he could easily have been a girl,
Whose hair fell in waves against his ivory neck,
Whose forehead was white as snow and his eyes black as pitch,
Whose soft cheeks were full of delicious sweetness
When they bloomed in the brightness of a blush of beauty,
His nose was perfect, his lips flame red, lovely his teeth-
An exterior formed in measure to match his mind.

Marbod was definitely not the only person to have written such outlandishly homosexual literature and there were many other works to the effect of Marbod’s poem which obviously celebrated homosexuality. And the fact that this form of behavior was rarely frowned upon speaks volumes about the level of homosexual acceptance during this time. In fact another French monk, Bernard of Morlaix, had remarked that homosexuals “are as numerous as grains of barley, as many as the shells of the sea or the sands of the shore.”

Gay, Not In...

This brings us to an important question. How did things change so much so that homosexually became widely condemned?

The 12th century saw a Europe which was infatuated with the idea of returning to the glory of the Roman Empire. To do this, order was essential; there was a want for uniformity which meant that deviations from the norm were met with hostility, and to achieve such a goal, the Church and government began to work together with the Church taking an increasingly important role in the affairs of state. And soon there came a point where the Church and the state were almost as one. With the Church taking a greater role in government, it was inevitable that certain repressions would result.

Get In!

But it’s not necessary to establish how homosexuality plunged to the dire state it now occupies in the world. What really is needed is the unconditional appreciation that people are different. Well, actually there already is this general understanding but somehow people are able to ‘forget’ that homosexuals are people. That, to me, is the most repugnant thing in the world.

There are many things in this world that I disapprove of. There are many opinions that I would never subscribe to. But as Voltaire once said, "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it".

Freedom is the one thing in this world that I respect. And anyone with a rational mind (I do hope that's not too rare), would be able to feel the same way. One does not think with the heart, but rather with the mind.