Gay Rights are Civil Rights: Ancient Cultures Supported Homosexuals, Why Don't We?

Looking in the Yahoo reference dictionary, I found this definition of love. 'A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness'; this confuses me, because many people try to tell me that love is defined as being an emotion that takes place only between men and women. I didn't see anything about men and women in that definition, but as being toward a 'person.' I'm sure you've figured it out by now, but I am an advocate of gay rights and tire of hearing arguments of how 'bad' gay people are, and hearing about how their rights have been again denied.

In response, I want to offer not only my simple opinion on the topic, but also some hard facts about homosexuality. It has been around long before the bible was written and has been practiced in almost every single culture for a very long time, mostly with little or no stigma attached to it. So, why is it that we modern, educated and 'enlightened' people have such a problem with it? Simple ignorance and a refusal to see anything from other standpoints, these are the reasons as far as I can see it. At the very least, I think we can agree that what people do in their own homes, whether or not you agree, has really no barring on your life at all, and really does nothing to hurt, hinder or bother you, unless you let it bother you.

There are many reasons cited as reasons against same sex marriage. Religion is primary; as is that it is against nature. Now animals do exhibit certain homosexual tendencies many studies have shown this. Being that I am Wiccan, I cannot agree that religion is a good reason to ban same sex marriage since my religion supports it. Now, you don't have a right to say my religion is wrong in a legal sense, so there goes the religion defense. I'll be coming back to the religion thin briefly later though. I have heard a laughable defense for anti-gay marriage that since there has been a gay divorce; it proves that gay marriage can't work.

Alright, if we go that route, we have to ban straight marriage; after all with a divorce rate of almost 50%, according to The national Center for Health, it is obvious that straight marriages just don't last. Now since I don't foresee us banning straight marriage, how about we just do the simple and allow gays to be married nationwide? I'd like to start my journey through history with a rather recent, in a historical sense, event. This event is the drafting of the American constitution, an article written in order to preserve our civil liberties, in this documents introduction, it states that we are all granted right to 'Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.' Now, I do not see how we now feel that we have a right to deny that pursuit of happiness to others.

If Homosexuals find their pursuits of happiness in marriage, how can we honestly feel we have the right to deny the civil liberties guaranteed to them within the constitution? I certainly don't think I have any right to take others rights away and anyone who does is in direct violation of the constitution, doesn't that make them a criminal? While I am briefly talking about our constitution, let me also touch on the argument held by most anyone opposed to gay rights the classic 'it's against God' argument. I totally support your right to feel this way and your religious freedom, and I totally agree that any particular priest, pastor, etc should have the right to refuse to perform a marriage ceremony for homosexuals if they think this way. Let me remind you though, that we are supposed to uphold a separation of church and state.

Now I am not one of those people who go around griping and complaining because some court house has commandments around it, but I am the type who complains when others violate the law simply to push what they think is right. According to the constitution, this separation of Church and State is to ensure that no set of religious principles is allowed to be pushed by the government onto others. I am a devote and faithful Wiccan and I love my religion, but I would not want any president or government official forcing pagan views onto anyone else, it is never right to force views. Similarly it is defiantly not right for Jerry Falwell, President Bush or any other politically active religious advocate to push their beliefs on me or anyone else. This is guaranteed in the constitution, therefore anyone who does cite religious reasons for a governmental decision seems to me to be, also, a criminal. Now that I have that out of my system, lets get into our literary time machine and take a trip through the history of homosexuality, and see if we might learn something useful.

The world lies at his feet, blood of enemies soaks his cloths and sword, the mere mention of his name invokes fear and awe. This man is known as Alexander the Great, and he conquered the known world. He was also noted, as much as any ancient person can be noted nowadays, as being bi-sexual. He was said to have a strong attachment to Hephaestion, a long time friend of Alexanders. Now, it should be noted that in ancient Greece and most surrounding areas, there was no true stigma attached to sexual relations with the same sex. Infact, the words for homosexuality didn't even exist, it was just simply sex whether it be between opposite or same sex. There have been a few stigmas attached to those who acted passivly during male homosexual encounters, but this was only because it was said that they were playing a 'woman's' role in the endevor. Unfortunatly male shovanism did exist in ancient times, even if homophobia did not. Alexander was said to have a few more male lovers, particularly a young eunuch named Bagoas.

Bagoas being a eunuch, a castrated servant, does seem relevant to the ancient mind set. If he had no genetalia than he was more womanly than most other men. It is written that Bagoas was so beautiful a man that he was cheered on to kiss Alexander during a festival during their return from India. This incident was reported by two different ancients, Plutarch and Dicaearchus. So, the world's strongest conquerer supports homosexuality, why can't we? Alexander is far from an anomly among ancient rulers mind you, let us step into our time machine again and go forward, to meet another well known conquerer from ancient lands. Julius Caesar is one of the world's most well known millitary leaders, and his efficiancy as a general is still admired by many around the world.

He modeled his millitary career directly from the exploits of Alexander the great. It seems he may also of modeled a bit of his personal life after the great conquerer. One citation of Caesar's homosexual relations was Nicomedes, king of Gaul. It was a relationship that would come to haunt Caesar later. As discussed earlier, male homosexuality was not seen as bad at all by ancients, but as with Greece, Rome did have stigma against playing the passive role during sex. It was a common chant, and taunt, by conquered Gauls that 'Caesar may have conquered the Gauls, but Nicomedes conquered Caesar. This has been debated to have been possible slander against Caesar, but was also upheld strongly by many ancient scholars of the time. Another citation of homosexuality, was made by Marc Anthony, one of Caesers closest friends and advisors, that Octavian was adopted by Caesar in return for sexual favors. What would Anthony have to gain of such a citation if it were not true? Caesar was not the only roman emperor to have male lovers, it was written by Edward Gibbon in 1776 that of the first twelve emperors, only Cladius did not have a male lover or two. Again, we find that ancients were a bit more enlightened than we are, I hope this may soon change.

Lets get into our nifty machine once more, and this time we will go to a compltetly separate land. The swordsman stands unwavering before his opponent, hands tightened over the hilt of his fine katana. Swiftly they move, swords cutting air with a shrill whistle, in less than an instant, it ends. The young samurai stands over his opponent, cut fully in half by his powerful swing. Masters of swordsplay, martial arts and generally tough people, the samurai is by far one of the best known archtypes in the modern times. What most don't know is that the samurai was expected to study poetry, painting, flower arangment and different types of cooking and tea making. What most know even less is that homosexual relationships between both males and femals were common. As was the case for ancient China, homosexual acts were not viewed as bad or wrong, simply as an act of pleasure. Sex in the ancient east was truly viewd this way, and since many marriages of noble families were arranged, it was not even seen as truly bad to have affairs outside of marriage. Men would take lovers of their servants, both male and female as would their wives do the same.

The only rule was to be discrete, so not to bring shame to your family. Same sex relationships-or at least sex- was common in Chinese and Japanese monastaries as well. That's right, the super tough, ultra 'manly' Shaolin martial artists were quite possibly involved in homosexual affairs. Does this make them any less respected as religious and martial leaders? Of course not, they were still the same people, we just have evidence to support they were involved in homosexuality. It is interesting to note that, like pre-modern westerners, the Japanese and Chinese did not view the acts as homosexual, nor did they view a person who had homosexual affairs as being 'gay.' Sex btween two men was really the same as sex between a man and woman and the same was true of women. It was sex, pleausre, that's all. I feel this is a very enlightened way of thininking, after all, if we stopped putting such emphasis on whose gay and whose not, maybe we could solve a lot of problems! Now, stepping back into our literary time machine, lets go home, before the Japanese imprison us for being outsiders who are in their himeland without permission.

Now that we're back, have you learned anything? I know the history has been brief, but that is neccasary due to space, but I only wanted to illustrate the point that most cultures do not view homosexuality as bad. The few listed are the majority here, most cultures near or in close contact with the ones listed would share common ideolagies about sex and homosexuality. Finally, I would like to repeat that this truly goes back to our basic civil liberties, no one has a right to infringe upon anothers liberties, at all. This means you truly have no right to tell someone they can't be gay because you think the bible says so. It means we have no right to stop same sex marriage, no matter how strongly we feel about it. In the end, even if this article hasn't changed your oppinion or educated you at all, let me just say this; it's none of anyone's buisness who is or isn't gay, we really need to worry about our own problems and not focus so much on homosexuality anyway. After all, with an unjust war in Iraq, politicalunrust, govermental scandals leaving lasting scars upon the congress, threats of nueclear war rising and of course the classic worries of economy, crime, drugs and other such worries I really don't have time to fret and fuss over what someone else is doing with their same sex lover. Besides, can any of you truly say that two men or two women being in love really hurts you anyways?