Part 3: The Roman Empire Outlaws Homosexuality

The third part of series A Queer History that looks back to Early Greece and onward to now. The Roman Empire outlaws homosexuality.

“The construction of Christianity under the Roman emperors was not about the religion. It was about power.”

Part 2: The Roman Empire Starts to Turn Against Homosexuality

The second part of the series A Queer History that looks back to Early Greece and forward to the way we live now. The Roman Empire turns against homosexuality.

“From 323 BCE, the Roman empire absorbed Greece, but it did so selectively. Although homosexuality was acknowledged, it had no place within the social structure, as it had in Greece.”

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246 pages • Quartet • June 7, 2012 [PB]

Allan Massie’s Dark Summer in Bordeaux, the sequel to Death in Bordeaux, is a worthy successor.

“Massie evokes this increasingly unstable society exceptionally well and provides the reader with a real sense of the anxiety and insecurity that must have ruled the lives of all who lived in Pétain’s ‘French State’.”

Sex Toys for all inmates!

Zimbabwe senator Sithembile Mlotshwa recommends sex toys in prison to prevent homosexuality and claims this is more important than feeding prisoners.

“Right now Mlotshwa is deeply troubled by homosexual behaviour in prisons, and she is determined to root it out, at any cost. After many a troubled night, no doubt, she has reached a conclusion: her solution is to furnish prisons with sex toys.”

Alan Turing

To mark the last day of LGBT History Month, 2012, the Polari team have selected Alan Turing for Polari Magazine’s list of LGBT Heroes. For UK LGBT History Month, and Turing Year, 2012. Written by Paul Baker.

“While many people have singled out Turing because of his contribution in helping Britain and its allies win World War II, it should be remembered that there were thousands of forgotten men who lived through the wars, who fought in them, and were also punished because of who they loved.”

Author D.J. West

D.J. West, who wrote the pioneering book ‘Homosexuality’ (1955), talks at Gay’s the Word, 1 March 2012.

“Now he gives a raw account of a fraught private life of love and sex, constantly under threat of public exposure, and tells how this interacted with a professional career.”

Latest News on the Petition to revoke Alan Turing

The justice minister, Lord McNally, unfairly dismisses the pardon for Alan Turing.

“In his centenary, Turing is owed a debt of gratitude by this country. LGBT History Month is not the time to reject that change.”

How do you deal with having to come out again?

Scott De Buitléir writes about what it meant to come out again when he moved away from home.

Will there ever be a case when coming out never has to be done? That one day, you can just mention having a boyfriend as another would mention having a girlfriend?

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260 pages • Quartet • June 01, 2011 [PB]

Tim Bennett-Goodman takes pleasure in Death in Bordeaux, which charts the working and personal life of a police detective from the fall of France through the establishment and early days of the Vichy Republic.

Massie doesn’t shrink from the casual homophobia of the times. Even the most sympathetic of his characters find homosexuality impossible to comprehend, if not actually repellant.

The Gay Rights Movement – A New BBC Archive

The latest collection on the BBC archive website charts the corporation’s coverage of gay rights issues. There are thirty segments from both radio and television that range from news reports to discussion programmes and documentaries.

It is fun to watch the Conservative MP Ray Mawby out of his depth and spouting off the sort of nonsense that the Daily Mail likes to scare its readership with: the dangers of promoting homosexuality, the need to protect children from homosexual predators, and the idea that if you allow homosexuality you may as well endorse incest.