The Legality of Homosexuality

By Stuart Bartlett

Despite significant progress made by equal rights movements worldwide, many countries still maintain laws restricting GLBT people’s freedoms. These laws range from unequal ages of consent to sodomy laws enforceable by the death penalty.

In the majority of Europe and, to a lesser extent, the United States, the legal freedom of GLBT people to live as they wish is unquestioned. Activists now concern themselves with securing equal rights with heterosexuals, including the right to marry, and with ensuring protection from discrimination, both legal and personal. In many places of the world, however, homosexuality freedoms are severely restricted- to the point of certain so-called “sodomy laws” carrying the death penalty. Other laws do not prohibit homosexuality outright, but place unfair restrictions on homosexual couples, such as unequal ages of consent. In addition, many of the laws treat gay men and lesbians differently- indeed, the majority of the laws do not even consider the possibility of lesbianism, leading to many countries prohibiting male homosexuality while leaving lesbianism legal simply by default.

North America
Laws in North America are fairly tolerant, with Canada in particular standing out. Laws in the United States were decided on a state-by-state basis until 2003, when the Supreme Court ruled against Texas’s sodomy law and struck down the remaining states’ sodomy laws in the process.

Central and South America
With the exception of Belize and Guyana, which criminalize male homosexuality, no sodomy laws are enforced anywhere in South or Central America. Columbia is the only country which allows GLBT people to marry, though a few other states allow civil unions.

Asia
There are no laws against homosexuality in eastern Asia. In central and southern Asia, sodomy laws are more common, though India and Nepal repealed theirs in 2007 and 2009 respectively.

The Middle East
Homosexuality is predominantly illegal through most of the Middle East. In Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Yemen, and Iran, it carries the death penalty. The two exceptions are Jordan and Israel.

Africa
Homosexuality is generally illegal throughout Africa. South African law guarantees GLBT rights and bans discrimination.  Several Central African countries and the island of Madagascar contain no references to homosexuality, and so it is considered legal by default.

Europe
Europe is by far the most legally friendly area in the world for GLBT people. With the exception of the Chechen Republic, homosexuality is universally legal, and gay marriage or civil unions are widespread.

Stereotypes
by Arpee

Just because someone is a gay man, doesn’t mean he…

…is obsessed with fashion and is super-stylish
…is limp-wristed, swishy and talks with a lisp
…listens to show tunes
…is involved in theatre and the performing arts
…is a hairdresser or fashion designer
…frequents seedy gay bars and dances shirtless to disco music

Just because someone is a lesbian, doesn’t mean she…

…wears short hair, tattoos, and army boots
…drives a pick-up truck and wears a tool belt
…is really into sports
…wears plaid lumberjack shirts
…only listens to music by kd Lang, The Indigo Girls, and Melissa Etheridge
…wears leather and rides a motorbike

Popular media tends to perpetuate the common stereotypes associated with gays and lesbians. Portrayals of gays and lesbians in movies and on television tend towards stereotypical behavior. Gay and lesbian characters all too often are caricatures, reflecting stereotypical looks, mannerisms, and lifestyles.

It is a misconception that you can always tell homosexuals by the way they look or act. Typically, most people think that men who act in a feminine manner must be gay and that masculine women with short haircuts must be lesbians.

Too often people think they can generalize about the activities and lifestyle of gays and lesbians. Some people have long held assumptions about the kinds of music LGBT people listen to, the kinds of clothes LGBT people wear, and the kinds of entertainment LGBT people enjoy. Some might even generalize about the traits that they think characterize a typical gay or lesbian relationship.

Most gay and lesbian people look just like your typical neighbors instead of like the characters on “Queer as Folk” or “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.”

These stereotypes confuse the concept of sexual orientation with gender roles.

Sexual orientation: whether you prefer the same sex or the other sex as a sexual partner.

Gender role: exhibiting masculine or feminine behavior.

There is a cultural tendency to view homosexuality as “behavior” rather than a personal identity.

While there are some gay and lesbian persons who fit these stereotypes, they are no more representative of all homosexual people than are the Marlboro Man and June Cleaver types representative of all straight people. LGBT people generally look and act like everyone else. Most people never suspect the sexual orientation of an LGBT individual.

Source: http://www.aglbical.org/

Sweden joined 4 other European countries in May 2009, when the Swedish parliament passed a law that officially made same-sex marriage possible in church.

Sweden has long been a leader in giving homosexuals the same rights as heterosexuals. The country was among the first in the world to give gay couples legal partnership rights, and since 2002 has allowed them to adopt children.

The Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, and Norway have all passed similar “marriage” laws during the last decade, but Sweden is the first country where the law has a monumental effect on the country’s main church, The Swedish Lutheran Church.

The law makes it possible for all pastors who agree to it to perform the ceremony in their churches. However, the Lutheran Church has not agreed to call it “marriage” yet, because they think the term refers strictly to a union between a man and a woman.

Although other religious groups in Sweden are more split on the issue, with Muslims and Roman-Catholics making more sceptical comments on the law, the Lutheran church argues that this is a very important move for Sweden to have churches going in front and be a good example. “It is important that the Church of Sweden can be ecumenically weighty by being one step ahead and showing potential pathways.  We are first in this context,” says Claes-Bertil Ytterberg of the Swedish Lutheran Church.

Sources:

http://www.sr.se/cgi-bin/International/nyhetssidor/artikel.asp?ProgramID=2054&Format=1&artikel=2739765

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7978495.stm

http://www.thelocal.se/6713/20070316/

By Artur Fass

1. Montezuma II – Aztec ruler, 16th century

Besides being an Aztec ruler during the beginning of the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in 1502-1520 and having nine daughters and eleven sons, Montezuma is claimed to be bisexual by several historians.

2. Alexander the Great - Macedonian Ruler, 300 B.C.

Although he was married twice, ancient historical sources show that the greatest emotional relationship of Alexander’s life was with his friend, general, and bodyguard, Hephaestion. However, the sources never state that the relationship was sexual. If it indeed was, then this was not at all unusual in Greek culture. Today it is commonly thought that Alexander may have been bisexual.

3. Sappho – Greek Woman Poet, 600 B.C.

Sappho was an Ancient Greek poet, born on the island of Lesbos. Her poetry centers on admiring and love for both genders. Even though the vast amount of her poetry, has been lost, her adjectives such as ‘lesbian’ and ‘Sapphic’ are still used nowadays in relation to female love and homosexuality. Whether Sappho was lesbian or not, she seems to have made the island of Lesbos an icon for modern gay women from all over the world.

4. Dag Hammarskjöld – UN Secretary

Hammarskjöld was a Swedish diplomat and author and was the second Secretary-General of the United Nations. He served from April 1953 until his death in a plane crash in September 1961. He is the only person to have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize posthumously. Hammarskjold was not openly gay during his lifetime. Given the environment in which he worked, public knowledge of his sexual orientation would likely have reduced his effectiveness. However, the LGBT community considers him to have been homosexual.

5. Oscar Wilde – Irish author, 19th century

An Irish playwright, poet, and author of numerous short stories and one novel, Oscar Wilde was imprisoned for two years’ hard labor after being convicted of homosexual relationships. After his release, he left London forever and died in Paris, where he is buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery. His tomb there is considered to be a gay icon of Paris. 

6. Leonardo da Vinci – Italian Artist, scientist, 15th century

When he was twenty-four years old, da Vinci was arrested along with several young companions on the charge of sodomy. The most overt biographical detail concerning Leonardo’s personal life is a Florentine court record, which shows that in 1476 while in the workshop of Verrocchio, Leonardo was accused anonymously of sodomy with the male model and prostitute Jacopo Saltarelli. After two months he was acquitted due to a lack of evidence. Sodomy was theoretically an extremely serious offense, carrying the death penalty, but its very seriousness made it equally difficult to prove.

7. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – Russian composer, 19th century

Tchaikovsky was a Russian composer of the Romantic era. He wrote some of the most popular concert and theatrical music in the current classical repertoire, including the ballets Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty. Based on the letters he wrote to his friends, historians came to the conclusion that he was homosexual.

8. Eleanor Roosevelt – U.S. stateswoman, 20th c.

Eleanor Roosevelt was one of the most beloved First Ladies of all time in the US.

According to Lillian Faderman, author of To Believe in Women, she had a long term relationship with journalist Lorena Hickok. The two shared intimate love letters, which makes it clear that if not physical lovers, they were at least very intimate friends.

9. Peter the Great – Russian Czar, 17th-18th c.

The Emperor of Russia, who transformed the Tsardom of Russia into the 3-billion acre Russian Empire, is claimed by modern Russian historians to have had homosexual relations with his soldiers and close friends.

10. Marlene Dietrich – a German-born American actress and singer 20^th c.

In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Dietrich ninth amongst the Greatest Female Stars of All Time. Dietrich’s place in this collection of biographies of course owes itself to the strong bisexual undertones of her films, as well as her affairs with women. She is considered to be an important lesbian icon.

Sources:

http://www.uic.edu/depts/quic/history/dag_hammerskjold.html

http://www.velvet-club.com/gallery/lesbian_history_icons_marlene_dietrich.php

http://lesbianlife.about.com/cs/herstory/a/Eleanor.htm

http://go2online.ru/show_495_istoriki_viyasnili_chto_petr_perviy_bil_geem.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/

By Mounia Abousaid and Rachel Hampton

How do you decide you’re gay?

That’s not really how it works. When did you decide to be straight? People largely discover that they’re gay quite simply – by realizing that they’re attracted to someone of the same sex. It’s not something that one considers and then decides on. It’s natural.

What is it like to deal with homophobia?

Homophobia is an irrational fear or antipathy towards homosexuals or homosexuality. Dealing with it is horrible – it is essentially a group of people telling us that they believe a large part of our identity is invalid, that they think of us as inhuman and unnatural just because of who we happen to be attracted to. Think about it. How would you feel if you were walking along with someone you love and a person stopped you and said, “Your significant other has pointy ears. Therefore you are going to hell and I think that you are less than me, that you deserve to be fired from your job and bullied and discriminated against in all walks of life.” People are betrayed by their friends and hated because of homophobia. They lose their families and live in fear, terrified that the next person they come out to might do something terrible in response – whether that is a loss of friendship or physical violence.

What does LGBT stand for?

LGBT stands for Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender. Lesbian and gay are fairly self-explanatory. Bisexuals are attracted to people of both sexes – this does not necessarily mean that they are attracted to everyone who walks by, just that it is possible for them to be attracted to both men and women.  A transgendered person is a person born knowing that they are not the sex that their physical bodies are. For example, a baby might be born whose physical characteristics are that of a boy, but as this person develops they realize that they mentally identify as a woman. Technically the acronym is much longer and more nuanced – in fact the definition of transgender is much more complex and broad – but this is a bit of a crash course.

How does coming out work and why do people come out?

Coming out is the process by which a person reveals that they are part of the LGBT community, to their friends, family, coworkers, etc. The process and the reasons that people come out are intensely personal and individual. In general, being in the closet is extremely uncomfortable – it involves a great deal of hiding and lying, feeling as if the people you love do not know or understand you. There are purely practical reasons as well – dating is a hell of a lot easier if people know who you are open to dating. Also, people desiring to switch sexes through surgery or other methods usually feel the need to explain to their loved ones the changes which are going to occur – instead of just showing up and saying, “Hi, Mom. Yeah. I’m a boy now. Always have been, actually.” There are also legal reasons in these cases, such as switching sexes on official documents.

Do gay people bring anything positive to society?

Yes. We bring people.  The LGBT community contributes to society regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.

Matthew Shepard (1976 – 1998)

Remembering Matthew Shepard

Stuart Bartlett

In October of 1998, a college student named Matthew Shepard was murdered in a homophobia-motivated attack. His case has had far-reaching consequences for law relating to hate crimes, and for wider understanding of the danger of homophobia in general.

On October 7^th, 1998, Matthew Shepard, a freshman from the University Of Wyoming was found hanging from a fence not far from the town of Laramie, Wyoming. He had been robbed and beaten, had a fractured skull, and was in a coma. He never regained consciousness, and died in hospital five days later.

The apparently senseless murder shocked the town of Laramie. The police rapidly arrested two men, and found Shepard’s wallet and shoe in their car. As the case progressed, friends of the attackers revealed that Shepard was not a random choice; rather, the two men had deliberately planned to rob and beat a gay man. Matthew Shepard was murdered because of his sexuality.

We have just passed the tenth anniversary of Shepard’s murder. His case has become one of the most famous hate crimes in recent memory, and a rallying point for those opposed to homophobia. In 2000, the events leading up to his murder were chronicled in a play called The Laramie Project. The play has been performed countless times since, across the United States and all across the world.

Potentially the most far-reaching effect to come from the case is the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Originally introduced in 2001, the bill would significantly expand federal hate crimes law within the United States. As the law now stands, hate crimes which do not involve an activity under the protection of the federal government, such as attending public school or voting, are the responsibility of local law enforcement. Under the new bill, the Department of Justice will be able to support local police in their investigations, but they will also be able to launch Federal investigations when the local PD is unable (or unwilling) to carry out a complete investigation.

Progress for the bill has been slow. Though it eventually passed the House of Representatives, for several years it has been trapped in Congress. In the summer of 2009, however, the bill was finally included as an amendment to a yearly defense spending bill. All that remains is for the new spending bill to be approved by Congress, and for President Obama to sign it into law.