(Not Quite) 80 Gays Around the World: Part 5) Monks, Monarchs and Myrrh

Last time on (Not Quite) 80 Gays: The Art Workshop International was founded by 12) Bea Kreloff (1925-2016) and 13) Edith Isaac Rose (1929-2018) in Assisi, a city famous as the home of 14) St. Francis of Assisi (c.1187-1226), founder of the Franciscan order of friars who, in 2022, elected its first openly gay “bishop” 15) Markus Fuhrmann (b.1971).

There are two points I need to clear up. First, despite the title, friars are not monks. Basically, monks keep themselves to themselves in a monastery, while friars go out and minister among the outside community. I thought “monks” worked better in the title than “friars”.

Second, the Franciscan order of friars does not have bishops. That is the term I used because it is the most recognisable term used for someone of a comparable position in other Christian churches. Technically, all Franciscan friars are of equal position. Those elected to take overall charge of the affairs of the global Franciscan order (like an archbishop under the ultimate authority of the Pope) is called the Minister General. The world is divided into provinces (the equivalent of dioceses), and the friar elected to oversee each province is called a Minister Provincial (the equivalent of a bishop).

In June 2022, members of the chapter of the province of St. Elizabeth, the German “diocese”, gathered in Ohrbeck near Osnabruck to, amongst other things, elect their new Minister Provincial in succession to Father Cornelius Bohd, who had served his full term of office. The chapter elected 15) Father Markus Fuhrmann (b.1971). Just a few weeks beforehand he had come out as gay.

I wrote about the Franciscan stance on homosexuality last time on “80 Gays”. The issue of homosexuality in the Catholic Church was among several issues discussed in the Synodale Weg, or Synodal Way, a series of conferences held between 2019 and 2023 by the Catholic Church in Germany. Father Markus had always been a supporter of the Synodal Way and of changing some of the Church’s antiquated and corrupt practices, as was his predecessor. Needless to say, the Synodal Way attracted a lot of criticism from within and outside the Catholic Church in Germany.

Official logo the Synodal Way

During all of this controversy Father Markus came out as gay. He was not just an ordinary friar at the time. He was the Vicar Provincial (the next level down from a Minister Provincial) to his predecessor. Just as there was criticism about aspects of the Synodal Way, so there was criticism of Father Markus’s election. The fact that the province of St. Elizabeth elected an openly gay man as their guiding minister must mean that there is a change beginning to happen in the Catholic Church, at least in Germany.

Father Markus is the third Minister Provincial of St. Elizabeth Province. The province itself is relatively new, having been formed by the merger in 2010 of several smaller provinces. Prior to this, Father Markus was a pastor to the homeless in Cologne, the city at the centre of one of the former smaller provinces, the Province of Cologne and the Three Kings.

There’s a Christmas connection here. The Three Kings refer to those in the Bible story of the birth of Christ. But what are they doing in Cologne, you might be asking? The short story is that Cologne cathedral houses their reputed remains. They were brought there by Emperor Frederick Barbarossa from Milan. Before Milan they were in Constantinople, having been taken there by Emperor Constantine the Great’s mother in the 4th century. She had found them in the Holy Land. No-one today really believes they are genuine, but they help to focus the faith of devout Christians.

I’ve written before about the Three Kings. In my Advent series in 2019 I mentioned how modern scholarship is beginning to look at the Three Kings in a historical context. The earliest translations of the Bible didn’t refer to them as kings. This is a rank assigned to them in the Middles Ages to emphasise their status as important representatives from their countries, and because of several prophecies in the Old Testament.

It is speculated that the kings were in fact priests or astrologers. Taking into account that they are said to have come from “the east” suggests that they came from the areas now covered by Iran, Iraq and Syria. During the time of the birth of Christ these areas predominantly practised the Zoroastrian faith. It is widely believed that their priests were most often either androgynous, intersex, transgender or eunuch.

So, the Three Kings weren’t kings. We don’t know their names either. People of the middle ages liked to give names to anonymous characters in the Bible (such as Simeon Bachos). We still do it. We give names to things that don’t have them (children, genders, nations, inventions, animals, asteroids, etc.). Over the centuries the Three Kings have been given many names. Different early church communities gave different names, and some even said there were more than three kings. So, if other churches had been more influential we may be calling the kings by names such as Eshtanbozon, Zual, or Walastar.

The names that we are more familiar with today first appeared in the 6th century in a famous mosaic in the Basilica of Sant’ Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, Italy. There, above images of the kings, are versions of the names which became the most universal – 15) Caspar, 16) Melchoir) and 17) Balthasar. Another reason why we assume there were three of them is because they brought three gifts, one each – gold, frankincense and myrrh.

Two of these gifts puzzled me as a child. They probably puzzled you as well. Gold is obvious, a precious gift. But what about the others? Frankincense is just incense, also a precious substance at the time and often presented to kings.

We can’t tell much about myrrh from its name, unless you know that is a resinous substance obtained from a thorny tree of the same name. It is used as a perfume, but also in embalming. Its significance as a gift to Christ is to represent His mortality as the only part of the Holy Trinity who could actually die.

The name myrrh is of Semetic origin and means “bitter”. It entered other eastern nations and languages, including ancient Greece. There a myth was created to explain the myrrh tree’s origin. It tells of a girl called Myrrha who fell in love with her father and tricked him into having sex with her, resulting in her pregnancy. Myrrha became remorseful and went into self-imposed exile. She begged the gods to help her out of her situation and they turned her into the tree that bears her name. As for the unborn child, the gods decided to release the child from the tree. This child grew up to be associated with sex, beauty, and fertility and have various gender-fluid relationships. His name was 19) Adonis.

Next time on (Not Quite) 80 Gays: We step into a garden and play some games.

The First Queer Evangelist?

At this Easter time, or Passiontide, as non-English-speaking nations call it, millions of people are thinking about the teachings of Christ – some good thoughts, and some bad thoughts. There are more Christian denominations with more interpretations of scriptures than there are gender identities or political ideologies, so there are bound to be differences of opinion and doctrine which offend.

With more than 2,000 years of history behind it, Christianity has much that has been forgotten or deliberately ignored. So, it may surprise you to learn that one of the first black, gender-variant evangelists appears in the Bible. He is venerated by many established Christian denominations to this day.

Whether you think the New Testament of the Bible is history or fiction at this point is irrelevant. Even as an apocryphal tale the story, in theological terms, was an attempt by the early Christians, still worshipping in small, or secret, isolated groups, to show that people of any race, nationality or identity could be accepted as a convert, and go on to be an evangelist.

The tale in question centres on an Ethiopian eunuch, as he is generally called. The Bible doesn’t give his name. In the early centuries people liked to give names to anonymous characters in the Bible. The Three Wise Men of the Nativity are a well-known example. They were given the names Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar several centuries later. The Ethiopian eunuch has been given different names in different denominations – Qinaqis, Actius, Djan Darada. In western Christianity his most common name is Simeon Bachos, probably first used in 180 AD by St. Irenaeus of Lyons, the person who was probably also responsible for coming up with the names of the New Testament book in which the Ethiopian features, the “Acts of the Apostles”.

Here’s the story. The evangelist St. Philip the Deacon had a vision of an angel who told him to travel down from Jerusalem to Gaza. Before he set off he spotted an Ethiopian eunuch, a treasurer to the Candace (a rank similar to Queen Mother) of Ethiopia, who was reading aloud part of the Old Testament book of Isaiah. The eunuch seemed confused by what he was reading, so St. Philip went over to help him. They discussed the passage while they rode along to Gaza. Then the Ethiopian stopped their chariot next to some water, a river perhaps, and asked Philip if there was any reason to stop him from being baptised there and then. Philip said there wasn’t if he truly believed in Christ’s teachings, to which the Ethiopian said he did. So Philip he baptised him in the water. Upon doing so St. Philip suddenly vanished into thin air, transported by the “Holy Spirit” according to the Bible, back to Jerusalem. The Ethiopian, who didn’t seem to very concerned about the sudden disappearance, continued on his way home.

Later traditions say that he evangelised the Ethiopians. There’s no written evidence of this, but it is a fact that some of the oldest surviving Christian Churches, largely unaltered in terms of doctrine and practices, are based in Ethiopia.

“The Baptism of the Eunuch” by Rembrandt, c.1626, Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht, Netherlands.

The term “eunuch”, as applied in the Bible, is used for several different other terms that appear in the original Hebrew texts. One such definition is the word “saris” (using the Roman alphabet instead of the Hebrew). This was applied to any man who hadn’t shown any heterosexual sexual maturity or drive by the time he was 20 years old. There was no indication that these men had any difference, or absence, of sexual organs like we recognise today with the term “eunuch”, though some may have been forcibly castrated because of their lack of sex drive. In this respect a saris was like the ancient Greek agamoi. Like the agamoi, the saris was seen as a deviant and banned from places of worship.

On the other hand, a eunuch was often held in high regard. I’ve written before how some eunuchs were priests and holy people. Even the Three Kings mentioned above have often been referred to in recent decades as eunuchs or gender-variant.

The most commonly accepted origin of the Greek word “eunuch” is from a phrase which means “guardian of the bed”. This usually referred to the private royal bedchamber, the innermost living quarters of the king or emperor and his family. These “guardians” were the most trusted of servants. There was an equivalent in the UK Royal Family until the mid-20th century, the Gentleman of the King’s Bedchamber which was held by senior courtiers, not eunuchs. Sir William Neville and his partner Sir John Clanvowe were appointed Gentlemen and Knights of the Chamber by King Richard II in 1381.

Over the years, the original highly trusted eunuch “guardians” came to be appointed to higher offices of state, such as treasurer or chamberlain (the man who organised the chambers of the court). It is these positions, eunuchs who held high office, which was the usual translation of the Hebrew saris in the Latin Bible. In the “Acts of the Apostles” the Ethiopian eunuch is explicitly referred to as the treasurer to the Candace of Ethiopia. He was a high ranking courtier.

I was going to go into a deep explanation about other aspects of this story, such as why the Ethiopian questioned his suitability to be baptised, because it feels too much like I’m back in my days as a Methodist lay preacher and I don’t want this to turn into a sermon. So, I’ll just leave it at that. If you want to know more, there are many sites online that cover it.

What I will say is that the Ethiopian eunuch, Simeon Bachos or whichever name he is given, is used in the Bible to signify that anyone with gender variance and of whatever race was welcomed in early Christianity.

Slave or Lover? Or Both?

As attitudes within society have changed over the centuries, one thing has changed little. The Bible has been (and still is) used many times to justify terrible actions, abuse and opinions, most of them perpetrated by those who want to impose their political powers by force, or by bigots who want to justify their opinions.

There are several verses and stories in the Bible which have been interpreted as affirmations and condemnations of homosexuality. One story in the Old Testament became so engrained in Christian history that it became the origin of a word occasionally still used today (sodomy) – the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. One story which has been used in modern times as evidence that Jesus Christ affirmed same-sex relationships appears in two books of the New Testament, in Matthew chapter 8 and Luke chapter 7.

The two versions of the story are almost identical and indicate an older common origin, referred to as source “Q” by Biblical scholars. No-one is sure what that origin may be, how old it is, or if it still exists but they tend to agree that Matthew’s account is likely to have been written closest in time to source Q, while Luke’s account has been slightly embellished.

Here is the short version of the story. Shortly after giving the Sermon on the Mount Jesus and his followers went into the town of Capernaum. Jesus had already gained a reputation as a healer of the sick and a Roman centurion in the town approached Jesus and asked him if he could heal his sick “favoured slave” (I’ll explain this term later). Jesus said he would and said he’d go with the centurion to his home. The centurion said he wasn’t worthy to have Jesus in his home and requested that his slave be cured from afar. Jesus admired the faith of the centurion and said the slave would be cured by the time the centurion got home, and indeed he was.

So, what’s the meaning of “favoured slave” and what words do the ancient texts use? The term has often been included in lgbt Christian literature as “beloved slave” which gives us a clue. In the early Greek versions of the story in the Matthew and Luke gospels two words “pais” and “doulos” appear when describing the slave.

“Doulos”, means someone who was born a slave. The other word, “pais”, has many meanings, including slave or servant, but it can also mean boy or child (boy or girl). The common Greek tradition of pederasty (men with young boy lovers) with which Christ and the gospel writers were familiar but no practice also uses the word “pais” to mean a boy lover. Throughout the rest of the New Testament “pais” is used in all its different meanings, so which meaning was originally intended for the centurion’s pais?

There have been a handful of books and academic articles which have examined and offered interpretations of this story. One of the earliest and perhaps the best of these appeared in “The Entimos Pais of Matthew 8:5-13 and Luke 7:1-10” by Donald Mader, first published in 1987 and available to read online here.

It is Luke’s gospel which refers to the centurion’s “favoured slave” or “entimos doulos”. As with “pais” the word “entimos” has several meanings. It can mean honourable, respected, valuable or precious. Slaves were not generally thought of as being worthy of respect or honour, so did Luke translate the word “pais” wrongly? Did he use it to mean a slave when the original source Q uses it to mean a servant, an employee? Luke’s account seems to imply that the centurion thought of his slave as something more than just that. It implies a more personal relationship.

A lot of Biblical, historical and gender studies academics are of the opinion that the centurion’s “pais” was indeed his lover. As a result many lgbt Christian churches and organisations have accepted it as fact. The truth is we’ll never know. The original source “Q” is long lost so any more definitive clues are lost with it.

However, the crucial point about this story, in both gospels, is that it is about the faith of the centurion not his sexuality. There is a danger that this can be ignored in favour of the minor theme of the centurion having a boy lover (assuming that is what source “Q” is supposed to indicate).

The current trend towards using the centurion’s story as evidence to support the idea that Jesus Christ approved of same-sex relationships is not really valid, in my opinion (I studied Bible history during my studies to be a Methodist lay preacher in the 1980s, so I have a little background in Biblical scholarship). Jesus supported all sections of society, including criminals, murderers, slave owners, people with leprosy and diseases, outcasts, prostitutes, tax collectors, those who opposed his teachings, and anyone who had an opinion that modern society would consider offensive. He treated “sinners” (as society at the time would call them) in exactly the same way as he treated his followers. The centurion came to Jesus for help and Jesus gave it. To Jesus the fact that a man had a boy lover would have been irrelevant. If Biblical text involving Christ’s actions are to be taken as evidence of approval or not, then we lgbt Christians should not support divorce or same-sex marriage – Jesus expressed strong opinions against both. Just to be clear, I suppose same-sex marriage (even if I don’t have the privilege of having anyone who to marry!) but it has nothing to do with what Christianity is about (I’ll stop there before I start preaching!).

The centurion and his boy lover presents a very thought-provoking story which has had historians puzzling over its vague meaning for decades. It’s easy to put an interpretation influenced by contemporary thought on stories like this, and this is not the only one in the Bible.

The Four Santas of Advent : 2) Queer Gift-bringers

If there’s ever going to be something that definitely causes controversy among traditionalists over Santa Claus it’s the suggestion of any gay connection. Evangelical Christian churches and far-right groups, and quite a few parents, wouldn’t like the idea of a gay Santa going anywhere near their children.

When it comes to being someone who represents Santa for the season in shopping centres and malls the fact that you are gay is a very delicate matter considering the general view still prevalent in many conservative, traditionalist areas (especially in the USA but very rarely anywhere else) that gay men are a danger to children. So, when a documentary called “I Am Santa Claus” was aired in the US in 2014 which featured a gay man who was a professional Santa there was the predictable outcry.

The Santa in question was Jim Stevenson (pictured below), and he is one of the many hundreds of men who become Santa every year. It’s a recognised profession with unions and organisations run by and for themselves. Stevenson, who lives in Fort Worth, Texas, and was 73 when the documentary was made, is also a titleholder of several “bear” contests. He is proud of both achievements.

There were several professional Santas who objected to him being involved in their work purely because he is openly gay, but not while being Santa. On the whole, though, reactions to Jim’s appearance in the documentary were positive. It seems his critics hadn’t watched it. Like all true Santa Claus incarnations you meet in the shopping centres Jim is a dedicated professional, and just like all the others, once he puts on that red suit he stops being himself and becomes Santa.

One other recent upset occurred earlier this year when Harper Collins announced it was publishing a children’s book in which Santa is portrayed as being gay and black. Not only that, but instead of Mrs. Claus he is married to another Mr. Claus, a more traditional-looking white male Santa. As you would expect there was a massive outcry from certain people and traditionalists.

It all started this time last year. Of the many thousands of Santas who materialise in shopping centres and Christmas grottos every year most of them (in the USA at least) are white. When one shopping centre chose a black man to receive the essence of Santa there was a huge outcry on social media.

All the fuss led American humourist Daniel Kibblesmith and his wife to tweet that they would teach thier future children that the real Santa Claus was black was that his white husband is the one we see on Christmas cards and in grottos. It was all meant to be a bit of satire but some people took it seriously. One person responded to the tweet with “Stop rewriting history”. As we already know from the way Santa Claus is dressed that the way he looks today is NOT how he looked in history. No-one accused J. C. Leyendecker of rewriting history by never painting Santa Claus in anything other than red.

The best response came from illustrator A. P. Quach who almost immediately conjured up an illustration of the inter-racial Santas in an embrace looking dreamingly into each others eyes. Quach also received a lot of online trolling, but it gave him and Kibblesmith the impetus to produce an actual book telling the story of the two Santas. In October the book “Santa’s Husband” was published.

Whether a black, gay Santa will ever become mainstream only time will tell. Perhaps a black Santa, which I imagine is not all that uncommon in some nations, may catch on quicker than a gay one.

For the majority of the western English-speaking world it comes as a surprise to learn that Father Christmas/Santa Claus doesn’t deliver all the presents on his own in one night. He has help, and some helpers deliver his presents on different nights. Santa may be the supreme gift-bringer but other cultures have their own characters.

One of the earliest characters who brought Christmas gifts, characters who pre-date Father Christmas, are the ones who appear in the Bible nativity story. They are known today as the Three Kings, the Three Wise Men or the Three Magi. They bring Christmas gifts to a lot of traditional Catholic nations on 6th January. The current thinking about the Three Kings is that they were priests or shamans from eastern religions. The Bible doesn’t actually mention them as being kings, male, or that there were three of them. Popular medieval culture, both religious and secular, developed a whole back story for them and turned them into the Three Kings we are familiar with today.

As eastern priests around the start of the first century it is quite possible that one, or all, of the “Three Kings” were eunuch, transgender or intersex. Many priests of eastern beliefs did have some kind of gender variation and were seen as having a special link to their deities. Even at the time of the Nativity itself there were eunuch, transgender and intersex priests all around the Roman Empire. Perhaps it is time for society to stop calling them the Three Kings, because for all we know they could all have self-identified as female – Three Queens.

From the first Christmas gift-bringers we end with one of the most recent, or at least one of the most recently rediscovered. For this we revisit my article on Galicia and the earliest same-sex marriage in Spain.

In the traditional culture of Galicia is a Christmas character called El Apalpador. He is a character who is rapidly becoming my favourite Christmas character, and he seems to have developed out of the native Celtic heritage in the early medieval period. Like Santa he is a large man with a big bushy beard, though unlike Santa his beard is ginger in colour (not unlike my own before it turned white), an indication, perhaps, of his Celtic origin. The Celts of Ireland are famous for their red hair and Ireland is part of the old Celtic “empire”. El Apalpador lives in the woods and is dressed in appropriately rugged working clothes who, like Santa, carries a sack of presents. Traditionally, these presents were chestnuts which he left on Christmas Eve, or in some places on New Year’s Eve, after going around as the children slept to check they had not gone hungry that year. He left the chestnuts to ensure they had something to eat in the coming winter months. Similar characters from the same area of northern Spain and Portugal also exist. It would be interesting to find out if this gift-bringing has any connection to the legends of St. Nicholas and when each legend began to find out which came first – Apalpador or St Nick.

El Apalpador began to disappear during the Middle Ages and the Three Kings became the primary gift-bringer at Christmas. In parts of Galicia the traditions of El Apalpador lingered and in recent years has re-emerged as a popular Christmas character, thanks to the work of Galician nationalists who began actively promoting their culture’s heritage. This became very successful and people dress up as El Apalpador just as they do as Santa Claus. Which brings me to that article on same-sex marriage in Galicia.

That marriage was made widely known due to the research of Galician historian, politician and gay activist Carlos Cállon. He is a major figure in the re-discovery of Galician tradition and heritage. We’ll end with this image of Carlos dressed as El Apalpador at a Galician national celebration in 2012. And whoever brings your Christmas presents this year I hope he/she/they brings what you desire the most.

Believe It Or Not : Sodom Revealed?

The theme for the UK’s LGBT History Month in February is “Religion, Belief and Philosophy”. The subject may not appeal to many people but throughout this year, as in previous years, I’ll base a lot of articles on it. I hope to show that the subject is as interesting, diverse and important as any other I’ve covered, and I’ll do that is a new series called “Believe It Or Not”.

Popular perceptions of religion in particular are often negative. One of the biggest negative influences religion has had on the lgbt community is its attitude towards gay sex (not to be confused with gay love, a concept accepted as honourable by many religions for centuries).

Nothing sums up this attitude to gay sex more than the name given to it by the early Christian church – sodomy. This word comes from the well-known Biblical story of the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Surely there could be no better place to start this series than Sodom.

Just like Indiana Jones going in search of sacred artefacts historians and archaeologists have been hunting around for the actual site of Sodom. That’s not as pointless as it might seem at first. After all, Troy was regarded as a fictional city until it was uncovered, as was the palace of King Minos of Crete.

Sodom’s location has aroused interest for almost 150 years and still does. Several archaeologists have claimed to have found the ancient city. None of these claims have received as universal acceptance as the location of Troy has done, but they all reveal more about the ancient Middle East. Last November a new book was published looking at the geological evidence to locate Sodom.

I’m going to choose three sites which have been claimed as being the remains of Sodom. The first location is the traditional one, known to ancient writers such as Strabo, who lived at the same time of Christ, which probably means that Christ himself knew of it as well. A large hill composed almost entirely of salt at the southern end of the Dead Sea in what is now part of the Judean Desert Nature Reserve has had the Hebrew name Har Sedom since before Strabo’s time. He recorded that the hill was the location of Sodom. There’s even a pillar of salt called “Lot’s Wife” after the unfortunate woman who ignored the advice not to turn back and look at the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah as told in the Bible. There’s no archaeological evidence to show that Har Sedom, or Jabel Usdu in Arabic and Mount Sodom in English, is the site of the destroyed city.

The Dead Sea is renowned for its buoyancy properties. Its high salt content led the ancients to call it the Sea of Salt. To digress briefly, the Dead Sea features in an amusing story from the time of the Siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD. The bisexual future Emperor Titus, serving as an army captain, condemned a group of slaves to death. The slaves were taken in chains and thrown into the Sea of Salt. Titus probably didn’t know of the sea’s buoyancy properties and was startled when the slaves came bobbing back onto the shoreline like corks. Titus threw them back in several times and each time they came bobbing back. In the end he pardoned them all and set them free.

In the 1970s another candidate for Sodom was identified using archaeological means. Using location details In the Bible which places Sodom as one of the Cities of the Plain in the Valley of Siddim south of the Dead Sea archaeologists discovered several ancient destroyed settlements which hit the bill.

One of these sites, Bab edh-Dhra, was claimed as the site of Sodom, and another site, Numeira, as Gomorrah. Several pieces of evidence were brought forward in support of the claim. First is their location on the edge of the “the Plain” which geologists day was present in Biblical times. Secondly, botanical specimens indicate cultivation on irrigated land, as described in the Bible. The remains of fortifications indicate both Bab edh-Dhra and Numeira were important cities, as were Sodom and Gomorrah. Finally, both sites showed signs of being destroyed or abandoned in ancient times.

Not all historians agree that the evidence proves the sites are actually Sodom and Gomorrah. Specifically, they say that the archaeological evidence doesn’t indicate that the cities were destroyed at the same time as the Bible states.

Having searched south of the Dead Sea it came as a surprise last year when it was suggested Tall el-Hammam, north of the Dead Sea, was Sodom. There is a layer of ash containing fragments of human bones, and the area produces large amounts of desert glass, sand fused together by temperatures so high that they couldn’t have been made by any man-made process. The archaeologists go further as to suggest Tall el-Hammam was destroyed by a meteor airburst.

A meteor airburst isn’t as far-fetched as is sounds. You may remember that spectacular meteor crash in the Russian countryside a couple of years ago. That was a mere damp squib compared to what the archaeologists say caused the destruction of Tall el-Hammam, indicating it could have been the historical Sodom. An ancient clay tablet records such an event occurring in around the year 3123 BC. However, a meteor burst of that power would have destroyed many other cities as well as Sodom, and the Bible indicates that they weren’t.

Perhaps we’ll never know where the remains of Sodom and Gomorrah really are. Undoubtedly other theories will emerge in the coming years. For the time being, we must decide for ourselves whether to Believe It Or Not.

Just as modern film-makers delight in showing off their computer skills by filling their films with spectacular cgi effects, traditional artist and painters delighted in showing their own interpretation of death and destruction. The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was a particularly suitable topic for them to display their skills with a paint brush. This painting, by John Martin (1789-1854), is one of hundreds depicting the famous disaster.

A Love That Has Been Discussed For Millennia

The USA is celebrating American-Jewish Heritage month throughout May. Many people of Jewish heritage have been instrumental in the development of the lgbt community and fight for gay rights. Among them are Harvey Milk and Magnus Hirschfield. I’ll write several articles throughout May to celebrate the varied contributions to the world made by lgbt people of Jewish heritage.

One cannot mention Jewish heritage without thinking about the Holocaust, the darkest hour in Jewish history. Gay Jews were doubly persecuted, and their sacrifices left a legacy to the lgbt community in the symbol of their persecution, the pink triangle.

Going back into early Jewish history there’s a story of the love between two men which has divided opinion for centuries and is often put forward as Biblical support for same-sex relationships. These two men was David and Jonathan.

The names of David and Jonathan have been used euphemistically to indicate various states of same-sex relationship – homosocial (a strong bromance), homoerotic (physical, platonic attraction), and homosexual (full physical, sexual relationship). It should be remembered, however, that most of the opinions about David and Jonathan’s relationship have been interpreted through 2000 years of Christian doctrine. Few Jewish scholars left any opinion at all until the last hundred years.

I’m sure everyone has their own opinion about the exact nature of the relationship. This opinion may well be based on nothing more than the word of others or a fleeting reference in an lgbt publication. It’s a complicated matter to resolve, as all historians and theologians have discovered.

If you’d like to get a better idea for yourself and form a clearer opinion (or perhaps confuse you even more) may I make a suggestion? How many of you have actually read the Biblical account of the story of David and Jonathan? Have a look at it. It doesn’t matter of you’re an atheist of non-Christian/Jewish. You’re not reading it for spiritual guidance or for any religious reason. You’re reading it to get to know what is actually written. After all, how many adults have read the Harry Potter children’s book series? So, grab a Bible. Turn to the Old Testament and read the book of Samuel. Find a good modern version, as it is more likely to be based on original ancient texts than on Medieval translations of earlier Medieval translations of even earlier translations.

Historians, theologians and academics have a difficult time interpreting the story within its historical and cultural context because so little information has survived. I’m not surprised if the average lgbt person is confused. However, several prominent academics have come out if favour of a gay relationship between David and Jonathan, whether it’s homosocial, homoerotic or homosexual. Even Oscar Wilde referred to them in support of “the love that dare not speak its name”.

A major supporter in favour of a physical, sexual relationship was the gay historian John Boswell (1947-1994). In both of his major works (“Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century”, 1980, and “The Marriage of Likeness: Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe”, 1995) Boswell discusses some of the ancient texts that are used to support the Biblical relationship.

For the most comprehensive study of the evidence and texts there is probably no better place to go than the “Epistle” website. This site contains several dozen articles by one of the unsung pioneers in the specific study of the David and Jonathan relationship. The articles were written by Bruce Linden Gerig (1936-2012), another gay historian and a practicing Christian. He spent many decades researching the subject. His articles can be found here. Gerig is never clear about his own opinion but he sets out a vast amount of material which supports several different viewpoints.

Whether they’re religious or atheist, many lgbt activists have used the example of the relationship between David and Jonathan to support legislation of same-sex unions. Just as many have suggested evidence to support the opposite. The debate will continue for many centuries yet, I imagine, but it shows just how important Jewish heritage is, not only in modern discussions on same-sex marriage but also in discussions on the religious acceptance (or otherwise) of homosexuality, and of modern interpretations of ancient texts and cultures.

Epiphany's Night Visitors

As a supplement to one of my themes for 2014 (music) it seems appropriate on this Feast of the Epiphany to look at an opera which features this event which Christians celebrate each year. That is the arrival of the Three Kings to the Nativity.

“Amahl and the Night Visitors” is one of those seasonal favourites that is broadcast every year somewhere around the world. From its origins as a written-for-television opera it has joined the ranks of “A Christmas Carol”, “White Christmas” and “The Messiah” as a seasonal essential.

Its origin and subject matter was highly influenced by the childhood of its gay composer, Italian-born Gian Carlo Menotti.

The plot of “Amahl and the Night Visitors” is perfect in its simplicity. The Three Kings arrive at the home of a disabled boy called Amahl and his mother on their way to the Nativity. Amahl’s mother tries to steal some of their gold. The kings forgive her and she gives back to gold. Amahl and his mother wish they could send a gift to the Christ child. When Amahl offers one of his crutches his lameness miraculously vanished. He then accompanies the kings on their journey to the Nativity.

“Amahl and the Night Visitors” was the first opera written specifically for television. The NBC network in America wanted to put more opera on the small screen so commissioned Menotti to write and opera for their Christmas schedule of 1951.

This wasn’t NBC’s first approach to Menotti. In 1939 they commissioned him to write an opera for radio. The result was “The Old Maid and the Thief”.

It took Menotti a while to come up with an idea. He had the notion of it being an opera for children and it was his won childhood which provided the inspiration.

Growing up in Italy Menotti’s childhood Christmases were devoid of that one thing that the British/American public take for granted – Father Christmas or Santa Claus. Not every country has Santa as a gift-bringer, if it even has Santa at all. In Italy, and several other Mediterranean countries, the Christmas gift-bringers are the Three Kings, and they bring them on this night, not Christmas Eve. Unfortunately, globalisation is depriving the world of its rich variety, as Italy is one of those countries where Santa is gradually taking over the gift-bringing duties.

Menotti was wandering through the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art with less than 2 months to come up with a complete opera. Pausing in front of a painting by Heironymus Bosch called “The Adoration of the Magi” all those happy memories of the Italian tradition of the Three Kings flooded back and he realised he had found the subject for his opera.

From the way he described it himself it sounds like one of those moments you see in cartoons when a light bulbs flash above characters heads when they get an idea. For several years Menotti had lived in the US and had become so used to Santa Claus that his memories of the Three Kings were in danger of being consigned to the furthest corner of his memory. So thank God for Heironymus Bosch!

Once he had got his subject Menotti set to work. From the very start he wanted to write the part of Amahl for a boy. Quite often in opera a boys’ character is portrayed by a female singer, but Menotti was adamant that Amahl should always be sung by a boy. Perhaps that is one of the elements that has made the opera so special.

With the NBC’s deadline rapidly approaching Menotti completes his opera with only a few days before it was due to be broadcast on Christmas Eve 1951. Menotti’s life partner, the fellow composer Samuel Barber, was roped in to do the final orchestrations.

The premiere of “Amahl and the Night Visitors” was broadcast across the US in the biggest multi-network hook-up for an opera on television. It proved an instant success, with an estimated 5 million people seeing it, again the biggest for an opera on television up until then. Its popularity ensured a repeat performance the following year. In these modern days when we re used to programmes being repeated ad nauseum in the same week, this must have made “Amahl and the Night Visitors” feel very special.

Professor, Priest, and Proud

In a blog concerned with history there can be no more distant events to cover than those around the time of the Big Bang. Today I’m looking at an event that occurred just afterwards and the role a gay physicist is playing in understanding it.

The debate between science and religion and the existence of God is one I’ve been avoiding deliberately throughout my year of science – so far. In the ancient world there was no debate because science and religion were the same. Philosophers used their limited knowledge of the universe to discuss the meaning and origin of life. Modern science is much the same. Scientific theories are based on what we know, we just know more than the ancients did and can explain the universe better.

There is, of course, a religious group who have adopted the word “science” in their denomination name – the Christian Scientists. Their doctrine regarding faith and science is worthy of a separate article, and their opinion of homosexuality is much like that of other denominations – some worshippers accept it, others condemn it. Christian Scientists acknowledge that there are worshippers who are lgbt, and in 1979 they formed a group called Emergence International to support lgbt Christian Scientists.

My own views on the specific debate between science and religion aren’t important at the moment, but I can mention someone who is an ordained minister and at the forefront of research into discovering the secret of “Life, the Universe, and Everything”. He is successfully combining three areas in his life which some may find puzzling. He’s a scientist, a priest, and openly gay, and his name is Michael J. Ramsey-Musolf, until recently Professor of Physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Many people are confused about ordained priests becoming scientists, or even vice versa. So it may confuse some people even more to learn that Michael Ramsey-Musolf’s specialist research area is the creation of matter. The Bible states that this was the action of God. Science states that this was the action of baryogensis.

Baryogensis, which deals with theoretical events shortly after the Big Bang, is thought to be the result of an imbalance of quark particles and anti-quark particles. That didn’t mean anything to me at first, so I spoke to an ex-partner who happens to be a physicist. He explained it in simple terms, so I hope I’ve grasped the basics.

Protons and neutrons are sub-atomic particles called baryons, and they make up most of the matter in the universe that we can see and feel around us. These protons and neutrons are made of even smaller particles called quarks. My friend then mentioned antimatter. I’ve heard of antimatter – it crops up in science fiction a lot, but it also occurs in physics. All matter in the universe should balance with the antimatter and, therefore, the quarks should have an equal number of anti-quarks. But that’s the problem.

Think of a quark as the simple number +1, and an anti-quark as -1. Together they cancel each other out and matter wouldn’t be created. So some baryons must have more quarks than antiquarks because matter WAS created. Without quarks, there would be no baryons, and without baryons there would be no protons or neutrons to create the matter to see and feel.

That’s the problem being investigated by physicists like Michael Ramsey-Mudolf – how do we exist? From a theological point of view he has one answer, but Michael is also interested in the scientific answer. At first Michael went through the process of deciding if science and religion were compatible, and which direction to take in life. Eventually he decided on both and studied for his PhD before entering the Episcopal Divinity School. During the whole time he had another decision to make – did his sexuality conflict with his religious beliefs? Again, he decided not.

In 1994 Michael was ordained into the Episcopal church of America. The diocese in which he works, Los Angeles, is already known as a progressive church when it comes to lgbt clergy. In 2010 the diocese consecrated Mary Glasspool, an open lesbian, as a bishop.

But Michael’s work as a theoretical physicist has not been without its problems. At the University of Wisconsis-Madison he experienced continual hostility from some colleagues purely based on his sexuality. He admitted during the first session which centred on lgbt issues to be held during a major physics conference last year that there were times when he thought of leaving his post at the university. It was support from a few colleagues outside the lgbt community who convinced him to stay on, at least for the time being.

And that time being came to an end this year. This month Michael left Wisconsin-Madison to become director of the University of Massachusetts High Energy Theory Group.

Michael’s participation in that conference session, organised by the American Physical Society, was just part of his personal outreach activities. These activities have ranged from something as simple as putting the Rainbow Pride flag on the first slide of his scientific presentations to being a member of several committees. He served as Chair of the Wisconsin-Madison Faculty Senate GLBT Issues Committee and on the Office of Equality and Diversity Advisory Committee.

No doubt the debate among some scientists on the compatibility of science with religion will continue until there is nothing left to discover. Hopefully the debate on the compatibility of being openly gay in science will end a lot sooner.



Putting the Record Straight on - Leviticus

This little mini-series of posts aims to give an alternative viewpoint on people or ideas that have been suggested as being part of the lgbt community. Today I present my personal interpretation on a controversial subject.

Way back in the 1980s I spent a few years as a Methodist lay preacher. At the time there was a big fuss about gay clergy, and not being “out” at the time I felt too uncomfortable to continue.

More times than I care to remember I’ve heard people trot out those tired old verses from the Book of Leviticus :-

“Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is an abomination”.

(Leviticus 18:22, King James Version);

“If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death”.

(Leviticus 20:13, King James Version)

If you heard these words coming from a Christian you’d suppose they’d be speaking with some authority on the subject – but they’re not. Using selective quotations doesn’t prove you are right.

Leviticus was written 3,000 years ago and is essentially a “holiness code”. The name Leviticus means “book for the Levites – the junior priests”. It lists many things Hebrew priests can and cannot do. They can’t work on Sundays, have tattoos, eat pork or prawns, read horoscopes, play with a pig’s skin (at last, a reason to ban football!), or “lie with mankind, as with womankind.” Leviticus was primarily intended for Hebrew priests which, as a Christian, I’m not, so they don’t apply to me. As St. Paul explained to the early Christians in Greece the old Hebrew laws of Leviticus (whether for priests or anyone else) have been replaced by Christ’s laws.

The Bible has been translated and transcribed many times, and each time the scribe has reflected his/her own times and attitudes. And if they didn’t have their own word for what was written they’d replaced it with one they did have, usually one which may have had a different meaning. In the case of the quotations about the word “abomination”, the word doesn’t even appear in the original Hebrew texts.

Briefly, the word as it appears in Hebrew is (in Latin script) “to’ebah”. It doesn’t mean abomination, it has several meanings which include “idolatrous” and “unclean”. Fortunately, some modern translations of the Old Testament have gone back to the original texts and chosen different words for “to’ebah” – usually “distasteful”, which doesn’t sound as bad as “abomination”.

Anyway, Leviticus 20.13 doesn’t even say “lie with mankind, as with womankind…” It says “You shall not sleep the sleep of a woman with a man” – even Jewish historians haven’t worked out what that means, so its wrong to place any meaning on it today.

Leviticus was written after the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt led my Moses. They had camped at Mount Sinai, where Moses received the Ten Commandments. All was well for a while, but then the Jews began joining pagans in worshipping idols. Leviticus was an attempt to give some responsibility to the priests to keep the Jews in order and within God’s laws. To do this the priests needed to have their own rules and laws describing how they should behave, and that is what Leviticus is all about.

I hope you don’t think I’ve been preaching. It’s a complicated issue that still affects millions of people on both sides of the debate. I’m a Christian and a historian and I’m gay. There’s nothing in the Bible to say I can’t be all 3 despite what evangelicals and anti-Christians say. As a historian I’ve used the Bible as a historical reference source just as I would with any other.

The 12 Gays of Christmas

The Archangel Gabriel

I bet when you read that I would be listing my 12 Gays of Christmas you didn’t think that an angel would be one of them.

Gabriel is the angel most associated with Christmas and always makes an appearance in nativity plays, even though he doesn’t have any part in the nativity itself. He appears at the prelude to the story which is celebrated on the Feast of the Annunciation on 25^th March when he reveals to Mary that she is pregnant.

What makes Gabriel appropriate for inclusion on my list is his sexuality – or rather, his absence of gender.

All through history angels have been given human characteristics. The Bible calls them beings of pure spirit who appear in human form as God’s messengers or agents. Being creatures of spirit angles have no need to reproduce as the spirit is eternal. With no need to reproduce there’s no need for male or female, only a single gender. So you could call angels asexual or agender. About a year ago I was sitting in a pub with my friend Nick and somehow the conversation turned to the sexuality of angels. Even though Nick is a practising Catholic it was very difficult putting across the notion that angels are not interested in sex.

Angels have an important role in the history of Biblical homosexuality. Angels were sent to the city of Sodom where their physical appearance as men aroused the evil “interests” of its inhabitants. Hence the use of the word “sodomite” in olden days for an active homosexual, even though the Bible doesn’t actually mention what the inhabitants were going to do to the angels. As Sodom was a hot-bed of other Biblical sins it could have been anything, which included eating shell fish. The angles were protected by a man called Lot, said to be the only righteous man in the city, and because of it he and his family were the only ones spared from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The whole story is told in Genesis, chapter 19.

The Bible also says that some of angels thought they were more superior than God, and God threw them out of Heaven and down to earth. These became known as the Fallen Angels, with the former Archangel Lucifer as their leader. When they hit the earth they created a deep pit which went to the earth’s core, thus creating the medieval concept of a firey Hell. All through medieval times people believed that these Fallen Angels were mutated by their evil and were transformed into demons, and one of the main punishments they exacted on the souls of the dead in Hell was sodomy. Generally speaking, though, the angels appear in the Bible as messengers with good news and were a good sign.

So to help lift the mood a bit for Christmas, I’ll leave with this piece of folklore. Just as Christian tradition says that humanity was created from clay, Muslim tradition says that genies were created from fire, and angels were created from precious jewels.