Illegal to be gay?

[U2Kitten]

After watching the movie "Wilde" I was shocked to find out that at one time in some places it was actually ILLEGAL to be gay, and you could get 2 years in jail for it?? I'm not talking about what people think of homosexuality morally or in their own opinion, I mean, against the law? Jail? Is that true a person could be put away just for being gay? Wilde got 2 years in the movie and it ruined his health so he died young Was that true? I also heard it mentioned in the life of Rimbeau. When Prince Felix Yussoupov wrote his autobiography in France in the 1950's, the well know bisexual alluded to 'my secret life' and 'my double life' and said he didn't know what some people had against "a love affair of a special kind." But he never openly admitted to being gay or bi. I heard that in France in those days you could be sentenced to hard labor busting rock in the Great Pyrannes mountains for admitting gay relations. By that time he was in his 60's and didn't feel like risking it. So is/was it really against the law to even be gay?

 

[A_Wanderer]

I know that sodomy laws etc. were widespread for most of last century (I still can't get used to that) but too often such things just happened and people accepted it. One could look to the french quarter of New Orleans in the 50's and 60's as an example of that.

 

[U2Kitten]

So that's what was behind it. Did it happen in the US too? What happened in the French quarter?


So are these laws still on the books but not enforced?

 

[biff]

So are these laws still on the books but not enforced?

Many anti-homosexualtiy laws still exist throughout the world. Most such laws were not repealed in Europe until as recently as the 1960's and 1970's. In England, even in the so-called "swinging 60s", homosexualtiy was frequently the cause of blackmail, often with suicide as the result, rather than public exposure.
In Texas, it wasn't until 2002 that anti-homosexuality laws were overturned by the Supreme Court. There are still many places where it is illegal.
People were in the closet for very valid reasons.

 

[U2Kitten]

Thanks for the info biff! Yeah no wonder people stayed in the closet

 

[joyfulgirl]

I've had gay friends arrested and thrown in jail for having sex in public bathrooms. Regardless of the legality or inappropriateness of this behavior, it is highly unlikely that straight couples would be arrested in the same situation. They'd more likely get a wink wink and a "ok kids, go get a room."

 

[U2Kitten]

I heard of a straight couple arrested for having oral sex under a table at Denny's

 

[verte76]

Heck, yes, people were busted for being gay. Gays married for appearance's sakes, just to stop any sort of rumors or whatever from going around. If busted for gay sex, the penalties were quite severe, in the U.S. and Europe and other places.

 

[joyfulgirl]

I heard of a straight couple arrested for having oral sex under a table at Denny's

Well that's a little different--it's a family restaurant. My friends were in a public, but empty, bathroom in a bar. There was no one there but the bartender and then the only person who stopped by for a beer that afternoon was a cop.

 

[U2Kitten]

I really don't think I'd like to walk in and find anybody, gay or straight, doing it I guess I'm like Tom Anderson in the old Beavis and Butthead shows, "get outa here boy, I don't wanna see that, pull yer damn pants up"

 

[najeena]

If certain religious conservatives (some in very high places) had their way, homosexuality WOULD be illegal. To them, freedom isn't for everyone in America, just those who live an approved lifestyle.

 

[melon]

I should tell you all that has happened to gay people over the centuries. But if I wrote it here, I'd make people sick.

But I'll give you one grotesque tidbit:

During the Papal Inquisition, people accused of engaging in homosexual acts were hung upside down and sawed in half, while still alive. For a "religious" organization, they were the greatest masters of torture since the Roman Empire.

Melon

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

I should tell you all that has happened to gay people over the centuries. But if I wrote it here, I'd make people sick.

But I'll give you one grotesque tidbit:

During the Papal Inquisition, people accused of engaging in homosexual acts were hung upside down and sawed in half, while still alive. For a "religious" organization, they were the greatest masters of torture since the Roman Empire.

Melon

Ugh. That's just...despicable.

How can people be so cruel when it comes to things like this? My god. Love shouldn't be illegal. Love is not a crime. Argh...

Angela

 

[A_Wanderer]

Hey, its still a crime all over the Islamic world, the abuses that continue today are not disimmilar to those of the middle ages there really should be more outcry.

 

[U2Kitten]

Hey, its still a crime all over the Islamic world, the abuses that continue today are not disimmilar to those of the middle ages there really should be more outcry.

Yes there should be more outcry, and also for the way women ar treated. But nobody is allowed to say anything or you're non PC against Muslims remember?

 

[Kieran McConville]

That never stopped you before, did it U2kitten? As far as I can see, you are welcome to hold forth at great length.

Just don't assume that all muslims think alike on everything. That's all I've ever been trying to say.

 

[U2Kitten]

That never stopped you before, did it U2kitten? As far as I can see, you are welcome to hold forth at great length.

Just don't assume that all muslims think alike on everything. That's all I've ever been trying to say.

Oh please. All my posts in that Gene Simmons thread, including the title, were full of the disclaimer terms 'some' 'most' 'in certain cases' and the like. I thought everyone could automatically see by that I was aiming my comments at the ones who ARE like that and it went without saying that it wasn't about the ones who aren't.

Yet still people kept posting the old "but they're not all like that!" stuff. So I added even more emphasis to show I knew that all along, even going ---->SOME BUT NOT ALL<----- to my next comments. But it happened again!

And now it's happened AGAIN!!

For the last time, I KNOW "they're not all like that!" and I never said they were. But always stopping the discussion with that only excuses the ones who ARE like that, so women, gays, Jews, Americans, and even dogs will continue to be discriminated againt, shunned, even tortured and killed by the ones who are because some people are so busy sticking up for the ones who aren't.

That's why I was saying, there can be no 'outcry' because it always ends up this way. I can't understand why the ones who are get blanket protection because of the ones who aren't, and there isn't more outrage or action to help those oppressed. If it was Americans doing this, you'd be all over it like stink on shit.

 

[Kieran McConville]

Look it's nothing personal, U2Kitten. I just get annoyed when people complain that they can't express a certain view because of 'political correctness', when in fact the current political climate is EXTREMELY accommodating to your point of view.

Just because you encounter opposition in FYM doesn't mean much.

 

[A_Wanderer]

I would disagree with that opinion. There is a serious proplem of the world having a shitload of ignorant racist jerks on one side and a bunch of ignorant touchy feely jerks on the other. This dichotomy is the problem, there is no massive anti-muslim hysteria or a massive PC pro-muslim campaign, we are in between both and whenever somebody says anything it is invariably attacked by the other group. It is a sorry state of affairs and I just hope that it can end within the next 5 years and we can find some freaking agreement.

 

[BluberryPoptart]

Political correctness is one of the biggest threats to free speech the world has ever seen. Ironically, it's worse than anything the much maligned "right wing" has done.

 

[BluberryPoptart]

Political correctness is one of the worst threats to free speech the world has ever known. Ironcially indeed, it is more stifling than anything the much maligned "right wing" has done.

 

[melon]

Political correctness is a direct result of the downright offensive nature of conservative speech during the 1980s. I know that it has been 10 years since political correctness became popular, and, yes, it has probably gone too far, but don't forget the climate in which it developed, because if we go back to the offensive nature of the 1980s, in regards to minority groups, such as ethnic minorities, women, and homosexuals, then PC will just come back again with a vengeance.

Melon

 

[Kieran McConville]

I'm sorry, I didn't realise all you people felt threatened and stifled.

 

[U2Kitten]

Political correctness is a direct result of the downright offensive nature of conservative speech during the 1980s. I know that it has been 10 years since political correctness became popular, and, yes, it has probably gone too far, but don't forget the climate in which it developed, because if we go back to the offensive nature of the 1980s, in regards to minority groups, such as ethnic minorities, women, and homosexuals, then PC will just come back again with a vengeance.

Melon

I, uh, don't know what you're talking about. What offensive speech? Who? When?

Originally posted by A_Wanderer

I would disagree with that opinion. There is a serious proplem of the world having a shitload of ignorant racist jerks on one side and a bunch of ignorant touchy feely jerks on the other.

And the touchy feely jerks are protecting the ignorant racist jerks. It makes no sense!! I'd think they'd be just the types the touchy feelies hated?