Interesting article

[Bill W]

I found this article interesting, in that the Israel is going to honor gay victims of the Nazi Holocaust. 

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/22/israel-gay-monument-_n_3795983.html?ir=Religion&ref=topbar

 

[Ron]

I watched the video and read the article, Bill. It is an important gesture, I think. Young people I've spoken to about the subject don't seem to be aware that homosexuals were also victims during the Nazi campaigns. Anything that reminds us that more than one ethnicity, group or affiliation of people suffered is important. 

 

What I found compelling also, were the responses to the article at the bottom.

[Zombie]

The Israel Memorial is good news.

 

Ever wondered what the pink triangle means? A lot of gay people don't care about gay history. They should. History has a nasty habit repeating itself.  This bit of history concerns what the Nazis did to gays during WWII and also shockingly - and which has been forgotten - what happened to them after WWII ended under Germany's Paragraph 175:

 

During the Nazi years in Germany jews and gays were sent to the concentration camps along with gypsies, the "feebleminded" and several other categories of people who did not meet the Nazi standards of "full human beings".  Jews were forced to wear yellow identification badges, gays had to wear pink ones.  We know the terrible fate that befell so many of these wretched people during the war years.

But what is not so well known is the tragedy that occurred after the war. When the Allies defeated Germany and the Nazi Regime, the political and remaining Jewish prisoners were released from the camps (the regular criminals- murderers, rapists, etc.- were not released for obvious reasons).  But the homosexual prisoners were never released because Paragraph 175 (a clause in German law which prohibited homosexual relations) remained West German law until 1969 when it was moderated (but not finally abolished until 1994).

So these poor innocent men, whose only crime was to be gay, watched as their fellow prisoners were set free, but they remained prisoners for up to 24 more years.

 

https://www.gayauthors.org/forums/blog/513/entry-13405-paragraph-175/

 

 

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Edited August 22, 2013 by Zombie

[Bill W]

Personally, I believe it's important for gays to know the history surrounding what gays have faced throughout the ages.  Just as religious and ethnic groups feel it's important for members of their group to know about the suffering their ancestors endured, it's important for gays to know how other gays have been treated in the past.  Heaven forbid that part of history was allowed to repeat itself. 

[Thorn Wilde]

Truth, bro. Well into the 70 and, I believe, even 80s there were still many, many parts of the western 'civilised' world in which you could be punished for having same sex relations. In fact, the year I was born, legislation was passed in England and Wales preventing local government from 'promoting' homosexuality and 'teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship'. That was in 1988. Too many people take their rights for granted.

[wildone]

I remember visiting the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles about 5 years ago. While in the Holocaust section, I was surprised to learn about how the gays were treated with as much hate and bigotry as the Jews were.

 

I agree with what Thorn says, repealing sodomy laws in:

 

Canada 1969

US 32 states by 2002, all states due to the SCOTUS decision in 2003

UK England and Wales in 1967, in Scotland in 1980, Northern Ireland in 1982

South Africa 2007

Russia 1993

New Zealand 2007 (Cook Islands Territory, still illegal)

Japan 1880

Italy 1889

Israel 1988 (full abandonment of the law)

East Germany 1988 and West came on board with reunification in 1994

France 1981

Brazil never been legislated to be illegal except in military service

Australia 1975 but Tasmania remained until 1997

China never been legislated to be illegal except with adult/minor (18 y/o)

Denmark 1933

Sweden 1944

North Korea never been legislated to be illegal

South Korea never been legislated to be illegal

 

Most sodomy laws were used against homosexuals, but also did include M/F anal intercourse as well.

 

Interesting on where the different countries fall, don't you think?

[joann414]

Things like this amaze me, and sadden me.

[Ron]

Personally, I believe it's important for gays to know the history surrounding what gays have faced throughout the ages.  Just as religious and ethnic groups feel it's important for members of their group to know about the suffering their ancestors endured, it's important for gays to know how other gays have been treated in the past.  Heaven forbid that part of history was allowed to repeat itself. 

 

I absolutely agree with the importance of this type of lesson for our kind. I use the terms 'our kind' and 'my kind' when speaking to others occasionally when it seems relevant to a conversation or a discussion because I feel a necessity to claim others like me. It's important to have an identity among the many and to know that you belong somewhere in the scheme of things. We need to defend and remind ourselves of our history so we don't forget and to others so it is not forgotten by them.

 

I don't mean to suggest that you think otherwise or were implying anything to the contrary, I'm sure of it. But I would like to remind folks that it is also important for gay people to be inclusive in their thinking where others have experienced similar fates. We should be mindful that others have suffered from hate and bigotry, from being marginalized by society, from being told that there is no reason for your existence and murdered for it. We can't afford to become too insular in our caring. That's a step, however small some might find it to be, that Israel is making by including a pink triangle in their monument. That Jews were not alone.

[Kitt]

One of the things I find most disturbing is the lack of education that accompanies this topic. As far back as the 70's when i was in school most history/social studies programs included units on the holocaust. While some were more inclusive than others, for the life of me I cannot remember homosexual relations being mentioned in any form. Nor was it ever mentioned in my daughters studies in the 2000's. As Zombie noted, history has a way of repeating itself. How can we hope to learn better as a whole if there are gaps in education?The revisionists seem to want to sweep the holocaust victims under the rug. Seems to me like a goodly number of them are already hidden there.

[thebrinkoftime]

I'm not sure whether this post is considered too political for the forum, but my intention was simply to give curious people a little of my perspective on a society I know well, not debate politics.

 

 

Japan 1880

 

In the interest of giving some perspective, I thought I'd elaborate on this one. Outlawing sodomy only lasted for 8 years in Japan. It was instituted in 1872 and repealed later on. It hadn't been prior and wasn't ever reinstitued ever since. A lot of people get this image of Japan in that era as a country that was influenced by Western culture so completely that it modernized so quickly that it took all the bad traits as well, I would argue that really wasn't the case at all. Basically, there was so much infighting over what the future of Japan should entail that there are a lot of interesting things going on with the government that are rather shocking or seem ridiculous or impressive in hindsight. There were areas where the pre-War government was ridiculously progressive, especially in terms of equality and areas where they had some rather bone-headed decisions (one missive that almost got passed was the banning of our writing system and wholesale adoption of the alphabet, dodged a bullet there). 

 

So in our view of history, this 8-year-old law was kind of like Prohibition and more an example of, "What the hell were they thinking?" rather than any societal pressure toward gays. Apparently, even the people of that time thought that was ridiculous.

 

As for today, the only real issue that gets in the way of gay marriage is legalizing doesn't hold much of an incentive for any of the many political parties here, despite a majority of them saying they have no issue with it and every single one publically stating that there should be equality in all forms for gays (I should use the term sexual minorities to be more accurate to what we call it over here, but whatever). It might have gotten a push a few years ago when a major shift in the ruling parties occured and politicians would have needed any kind of popularity they could find, but that was entirely swept away by the earthquake two years ago and the accompanying chaos it brought on this country, which hasn't been this politically volatile for around 40 years.

 

If you ask a lot of gays who are well-versed in politics here, they all tend to agree -- and so do I -- that it's likely to get legalized as a part of some non-event update to marriage laws. The issue is almost entirely removed from the bigotry narrative I hear in other countries -- the issue is apathy.

Edited August 23, 2013 by thebrinkoftime

[Thorn Wilde]

One of the things I find most disturbing is the lack of education that accompanies this topic. As far back as the 70's when i was in school most history/social studies programs included units on the holocaust. While some were more inclusive than others, for the life of me I cannot remember homosexual relations being mentioned in any form. Nor was it ever mentioned in my daughters studies in the 2000's. As Zombie noted, history has a way of repeating itself. How can we hope to learn better as a whole if there are gaps in education?The revisionists seem to want to sweep the holocaust victims under the rug. Seems to me like a goodly number of them are already hidden there.

 

I learned about it in school. That gay people were also persecuted in Nazi Germany. I didn't learn that they weren't released from the camps, though.

 

I've been to two concentration camps. Well, three, depending on how you count. I went to Auschwitz & Birchenau in Poland when I was 15, and to Theresienstadt in the Czech Republic when I was 17. We were given a pretty thorough education of what had gone on there, about political prisoners and gays and gypsies and Jews and disabled people and everyone else. It was horrible, but I'm glad I went.