Loosening a legal straitjacket
LOOSENING A LEGAL STRAITJACKET
Attitudes towards homosexuality have ranged from tolerance to savage punishment, according to the era. People who are homosexual are sexually attracted only or mainly to people of the same sex. In a society which has traditionally been based mainly on marriage between the sexes, homosexuals have often met strong barriers to an open expression of their sexuality.
These attitudes have often shown themselves as hostility, violence and persecution. Many gay people describe instances of verbal abuse or physical violence.
The lay also discriminates against homosexuals in a number of significant areas.
For instance, consensual contact between two males can be a criminal activity. It is punishable by imprisonment if either is under 21. By contrast, heterosexuals may legally have sex at the age of 16. There is also a reluctance to accept homosexuality in many official spheres. The army, for instance, can expel homosexual men and women.
Some of the hostility towards homosexuality is thought to be rooted in Christian teaching.
Many Christians interpret a number of Biblical passages, especially St Paul’s letters, as outlawing sexual activity apart from intercourse between men and women in order to produce children. (“non-procreative”-sex, sex that doesn’t aim at producing children)
The Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, which seeks to persuade Christians to re-think their attitudes towards gay people, says that the Church’s teaching, that sex was “good” only when used for conceiving children, emerged 500 years after Christ. There are even accounts of homosexuality between monks and nuns in medieval monasteries and convents. Increasingly from the 14th to the 19th centuries, homosexuality was regarded across Europe as a sin and a crime contrary to nature. The penalty in many different areas and times was death. For no clear reason the law overlooked lesbian sex.
Ancient Greece is frequently cited as an example of more tolerant attitudes. Greek men appreciated both male and female beauty, and apparently combined marriage with physical love for younger men. There was no disapproval towards older men who pursued younger men for their looks, but there was some disapproval, however, for younger men who succumbed to these sexual advances. So it seems as if sexual conduct wasn’t subjected to prohibitions but to codes of good taste. According to some scholars, the Greeks didn’t approve of sexual acts between mature men because these implied that one partner had to play the woman’s role. This association of homosexuality with “feminine” behaviour is sill present today.
The first law in Britain aimed at punishing homosexuality was passed by Henry VIII in 1533, directed against certain sexual acts rather than specific people.
The term “homosexuality” itself – from the Greek homos, meaning “same”, and not from the Latin word homo, meaning “man” – was first recorded in 1892. So it is only in the last century that people have been identified specifically as homosexuals. So until the 19th century homosexuality wasn’t seen as a completely distinct tendency.
In the 18th century a distinct homosexual subculture developed in Britain. The homosexual groups developed slang that outsiders failed to understand.
The language reinforced a sense of community and helped protect them from outsider’s interference.
The ban on sex between men remained in force until 1967 when the law was relaxed. It now permitted homosexual activity in private between consenting men over the age of 21.
LESBIAN AND GAY MEN
AND EMPLOYMENT
Lesbian and Gay Employment Rights (LAGER) has dealt with thousands of cases where homosexuals have been denied the opportunity to be treated fairly in their employment: harassment and victimisation are common; career development and satisfaction are affected. Moreover, many of the entitlements , benefits and perks that come with employment do not extend to people in same-sex relationships, e.g.
pension arrangements; removal, transfer and relocation packages.
It is unlawful for an employer to treat someone less favourably than other on the grounds of their sex, race, colour, nationality or ethic origin, but not on the grounds of sexuality. Employers are quite within their rights to decide not to hire, not to promote and even to fire someone because they are homosexual.
A lot of homosexuals know or suspect that they had been discriminated against in applying for work. They were denied a job because they were lesbian or gay.
GAY AND LESBIAN RIGHTS
• The Treaty of Amsterdam, which was signed in 1991, guarantees equal rights for
homosexuals.
• Tony Blair is the first gay-tolerant prime minister of Great Britain.
• In 1989 Denmark was the world’s first country that recognised gay partnerships.
• The city governments of Pisa and Florenz give homosexual partnerships the same status as
common-law-marriages.
• The EU-Parliament has passed resolutions to support the gay community. They insist that
countries that do not guarantee equal rights for homosexuals should be barred from the EU.
• The Vatican doesn’t condemn homosexuality itself, but any sexual act outside marriage.
Italy’s gay political movement is quiet because of the role that the Church sill plays in
Italy’s public life.
• In Germany the homosexuals are added to the list of minorities protected by the German
anti-discrimination-law.
• Tabloids encourage homophobia by writing headlines such as “Scandal of Gay Sex Cabinet
Minister”.
• Opinion polls across Europe show that the majority of the citizens support pro-gay rights
legislations although the age of consent varies from country to country.
HOW I HOPE HATE DIED IN SOHO TOO
• The press is horribly homophobic and it will take far more than a few self-righteous
headlines to win the confidence of the gay community.
• Most of the homosexuals are capable of laughing at themselves.
Self-depreciating humour
is one of the gay community’s strongest weapons but there is a thin line between humour
and hate.
• Most of the homophobia perpetrated by the media is subtle but, however seemingly
inoffensive, it proves that true tolerance and understanding are a long way off.
• Gays are the last minority that it is still cool to hate or ridicule.
• The Government now needs to change laws to protect the gay community. Lowering the
gay age of consent, allowing gays into the military and giving equal employment rights will
not really effect the way some people view homosexuals but it will protect them in the eyes
of the law.
• You can’t legislate people’s feelings but over time the law can affect the way people
behave, even if it cannot change the way they think.
• Homosexuals hope and pray that the spate of bombings will make the public and Press
rethink the way they look at homosexuals.
• It’s hard to contain my anger and desire for revenge against these evil fascists who seem
determined to destroy and terrorise the gay community. There are a lot of minorities they
may wish to target.
• If all the minorities stood together and realised that suffering is not exclusive, they would be
a formidable force. They are only minorities because they tend to focus on issues that affect
them directly. They have to understand that these racist murderers don’t distinguish.
• It’s one thing to say you hate people, but when that hatred leads to the planting of bombs or
the loading of weapons, then the rules change.
• I feel the same contempt for racists as I do for homophobics.
THEY CAN’T KILL US ALL
It was about 6:30 p.m. Friday night when a nail bomb went off at the famous “Admiral Duncan” in Old Compton Street. About a hundred people got badly injured or maimed in the blast, three were killed.
One of the perished persons was 27-year-old, newlywed and pregnant Andrea Dykes. Her husband Julian is still fighting for life in hospital with severe burns and nails lodged in his lungs. The explosion of the bomb which was hidden in a sports bag turned the bar into a demolition site. Eyewitnesses described scenes of “sheer carnage” at the usually crowded gay pub in the heart of London: Shards of glass and chunks of masonry showered passengers-by. The pavement was littered with injured, all was full of blood. Paramedics set up an emergency field hospital in Soho Square, patching up the injured before placing them in ambulances.
Although an extreme fascist organisation called the “White Wolves” already claimed responsibility for this outrage and for the previous Brixton and Brick Lane bombs, police allege that the perpetrator was David Copeland, 22, an engineer who worked alone for his own motives and wasn’t a member of any far-right organisation. He was arrested when officers raided his home and seized bomb-making equipment including “explosive material” there, which he had taken from commercial fireworks. Even Tony Blair, Great Britain’s prime minister, was moved by the bomb attack and made an impassional call for a tolerant, multi-racial Britain.
THE RIGHT TO SAY “I DO”
• Three gay couples have taken the state to court for denying them the right to marry.
• The two sides in this debate are so far apart it is difficult to imagine them ever finding a
meeting point. On the one side are fundamentalist Christians, for whom homosexuality is a
sin and on the other side are gay advocacy groups.
• The ban on same-sex marriage violates the country’s constitutional guarantees of privacy
and equal protection under the law. The choice of a life partner is personal, intimate and
subject to the protection of the right to privacy.
• Fears: If gays can get a foothold somewhere then that will only be a start. They’ll flock to
that jurisdiction to get married, and then they’ll go back to wherever they came from and
claim the rights of marriage.
• Fears: If same-sex marriages are permitted in the state, the institution of marriage, as we
know it, created by God , will come to an end throughout the world. Gays will recruit
children to their lifestyle and corrupt their minds.
• The distinction between civil and religious marriage is crucial. Religious marriage
ceremonies can carry deep meaning for individuals, but they are not legally valid unless the
couple has a marriage license issued by the state.
• For the gay community the advantages of legalising same-sex marriage are clear. Legally
married couples are entitled to spousal health insurance and retirement benefits and can
inherit their partner’s estate. They are entitled to receive social-security benefits and act as a
guardian for the other in their old age or make medical decisions for her partner.
• Children: The influences that you receive shape your life and the way that you’re going to
behave, and it’s just not a healthy thing for a child to have to deal with two same-sex
parents.
• Gay leaders describe the argument as “bogus” and “a vicious lie” unsupported by scientific
evidence. All the evidence is that children do very well when they’re in families that love
and care for them, regardless of the sexual orientation of the parents.
• Some people compare homosexuality with an addiction and suggested it could be cured.
Strict fundamentalist Christians believe that homosexuality is a sin and that a practising
homosexual cannot be a practising Christian as well. However, because many
fundamentalists see homosexuality as a “lifestyle choice” or learned behavior rather than
being genetically determined, they also maintain that it is possible for homosexuals to
“repent” and to change their behavior. So a number of Christian ministries, for example
Exodus International, designed to encourage gays to leave homosexuality behind.
• Fears: Once gay people begin to marry, it’s going to be tremendously transformative,
because non-gay people will get a chance to see that the sky doesn’t fall, and they will
accept it. They may not like it; but they don’t really feel threatened by it. They don’t buy the
rhetoric of the rabid opponents, and given time, most people will support it, or at least learn to live with it, because most people are capable of being fair.
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