Five Centuries of Utopia

We all like to believe in a perfect world, a Utopia where there is no dispute, no violence, no prejudice.

The idea of a Utopia has been espoused by many people through the centuries and one thing they have in common is that they are not achievable, but that shouldn’t stop us believing in one. Most religions have a Utopian world as an afterlife, while philosophers have spent centuries trying to come up with an earthly one.

Many people think that the word Utopia comes to us from Ancient Greece. In a way it does because it probably comes from the Greek for “no place”. But the word wasn’t used to describe a perfect society until the publication 500 years ago this month of the work called “Utopia” by Sir Thomas More.

Many lgbt philosophers and writers have contributed to Utopian literature throughout the succeeding five centuries and I’d like to feature three of them today.

The first Utopian novel following More’s 1516 original was “New Atlantis” by Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626). Being a great polymath Sir Francis helped to found the basic principles of modern scientific investigation. As with More’s “Utopia”, Bacon’s “New Atlantis” owes much to philosophy more than it does to fiction but they can be seen as both. Unfortunately, Bacon died before completing his work which would have concluded with stories of Utopian law and politics. The fact that he chose to write the first part about science and discovery shows his personal preference for the subjects, despite holding the highest legal office in England, that of Lord High Chancellor.

The Utopian science and research establishment Bacon created in “New Atlantis” was highly influential in real life. At the time the work was published in 1626 shortly after Bacon’s death there was a mood among the English scientific community, backed by King JamesI himself, that a special society should be formed to promote the new scientific methods that were being introduced. In 1660 the Royal Society was formed for this purpose and it is still going strong to this day.

“New Atlantis” also influenced a much more famous work in which a scientific community appears, “Gulliver’s Travels”, though Jonathan Swift wrote this Odyssey of a Nottinghamshire traveller as a parody of Bacon’s work.

After several other Utopian novels another by an lgbt writer was published in 1872. By this time the massive changes caused by global discovery followed by the Industrial Revolution led to many writers turning their pens to satire like Jonathan Swift. The 1872 novel “Erewhon” by Samuel Butler (1835-1902) is one such satirical novel which bases as much of his Utopian nation in a world that feels far removed from the fantastical worlds of Gulliver.

The main concern in Samuel Butler’s time was the publication of the theory of evolution. Combined with the Victorian obsession of judging a potential criminal by his or her physical characteristics Butler turned his nation of Erewhon into one where criminal actions are seen as a disease and possession of a disease is seen as a criminal act.

Perhaps the most contemporary slant in “Erewhon” was the section called “The Book of the Machine”. In the Utopian world of Erewhon machines were banned and consigned to museums. Butler was highlighting the growing dependency humanity had on machines, much less than it does today, and took it to its opposite extreme. Many Victorians saw the growth of industrialisation as a bad influence. After all, industrialisation led to mass migration of people into towns and cities and gave the country levels of poverty that it never had before. Slums, workhouses and mass unemployment didn’t exist before the Industrial Revolution and some Victorians wanted a return to the pastoral past.

Last, and certainly not least, we arrive at a modern vision of Utopia where gender and sexuality is the main focus.

Lesbian feminist and academic Joanna Russ (1937-2011), again, used satire to create her Utopian world of Whileway in her novel “The Female Man”, published in 1975. The novel is very much of its time. The feminist movement was at its height and Joanna Russ wrote extensively on feminist issues. She also developed a genre of feminist science fiction which has become an important part of the modern genre. Science fiction was dominated by male writers and male issues, and Joanna Russ’s “The Female Man” became the leading novel of female and feminist science fiction writing.

Joanna, unlike Butler, deliberately chose fantasy worlds and parallel universes instead of remote fictional islands to highlight the science fiction element.  Her Utopian world of Whileway was just one of the four she created in her novel. In Whileway all men were absent, having died out in a gender-specific plague. In a world without men the surviving women developed a means of reproduction in which two ova from different women are merged genetically. Without man as partners the women of Whileway form same-sex relationships and families.

As a contrast to this world Joanna Russ also created a world where men and women were in conflict and boys are surgically changed to look like woman for the sexual satisfaction of the men.

Joanna’s two other worlds in “The Female Man” are her contemporary world of the 1970s and a parallel world where the Great Depression of the 1930s never ended.

One woman from each of these four worlds meet and discuss the startling differences is their experiences and discover for themselves what femininity means to them. Through this they re-evaluate their own lives.

Through the pens of these three lgbt writers Utopian worlds were created which were shaped by their own lives and the world in which they lived. Sir Francis Bacon’s “New Atlantis” was a mirror to emerging scientific techniques and research, Butler’s “Erewhon” was a response to the theory of evolution and the growth of industrialisation, and Joanna Russ’s “The Female Man” was an exploration of gender in a world of sexual protest and freedom.

Star Gayzing : Centaur of Controversy

It’s been a few months since I wrote about an actual constellation, over two years in fact, so let’s get back to our star maps and look at one of the largest constellations, Centaurus. It is notable for containing the nearest stars to our own sun, Alpha Centauri and Proxima Centauri.

As its name suggests this constellation represents one of those mythological half-man, half-horse creatures from Greek mythology. Specifically, Centaurus is meant to represent Chiron, the most celebrated of all centaurs. Many people assume that the zodiac constellation of Sagittarius is a centaur because that is how medieval astrologers depicted it. But the Ancient Greeks saw Sagittarius as a satyr. Their centaur constellation was Centaurus. Originally, it was a Babylonian constellation representing a half-bull, half-man creature associated with their Sun god.

In Ancient Greece Centaurus was much bigger than it is now. Several portions have been “moved” into new or adjacent constellations, one of which is Lupus. Part of Centaurus also makes up the Chinese constellation of the Azure Dragon of the East.

Its not known for sure if the Ancient Greeks actually had Chiron in mind when forming their constellation. It is the Roman poet Ovid who first seems to record that they had Chiron in mind. So, let’s look at why this particular centaur had such an important place in Greek mythology and how he connects to lgbt heritage.

First and foremost Chiron was considered different to other centaurs. In fact, perhaps he should not be called a centaur at all. All of the Ancient Greek portrayals of Chiron show him as fully human with a horse’s body emerging from his back, rather than the more familiar human body from the waist up replacing the horse’s neck, an image we actually get from the later Romans. This is because Chiron was not a full-blood centaur but the half-divine son of the Titan Kronos.

Also, because of his semi-diving blood he was considered to be more cultured and restrained than the full-blood centaurs who were lusty, bawdy and wild. The Ancient Greeks placed high respect to anyone of culture and refinement and Chiron was just that. This made him a suitable choice as teacher and mentor to young Greeks. As such it is not surprising that he followed the convention among mentors of having sex with his young pupils. This, of course, takes us into a murky world its best not to think about too much! After all, Chiron was half-horse. Can it be called bestiality? Or did the Greeks consider any living creature that possessed any human physical features, capable of intelligence conversation, and displaying culture and refinement, to be human in all but name?

Many of the famous Greek heroes were said to have been pupils, and therefore also lovers, of Chiron – Jason, Perseus, Theseus and, some say, Hercules/Herakles. Several heroes of the Trojan War are listed among his pupils – Ajax, Patroklus and, most importantly, Achilles. The relationship Chiron had with Achilles was the most celebrated of all. There are many depictions from both Ancient Greece and the Renaissance period which show Chiron and Achilles in a close, homoerotic, relationship.

With Chiron’s high standing in Greek culture it was just a matter of time before legends of him being honoured with his own constellation were created, though why it was given the generic name of Centaurus and not Chiron is a mystery. If it had, perhaps it would have averted the mis-identification of Chiron with Sagittarius.

But even if the pre-modern world of astronomy forgot Chiron’s name it re-emerged in modern times as the name of a completely new type of planetary object which led to the controversial demotion of Pluto from major planet to dwarf planet. In 1977 a new object was discovered between Saturn and Uranus. Its orbit was eccentric, taking it way out beyond Uranus and swinging back closer than Saturn making it a new type of asteroid/minor planet. After being named Chiron it was suggested that any others found with similar orbits in this region should also be named after centaurs.

Moving on a few years and many, many, many other “centaurs” had been discovered. Many were too much like Pluto to reasonably call them “minor planets” while Pluto was a major planet – one of the nine. Hence the controversy over the re-classifying of all objects in the solar system a few years ago. For Pluto this was disaster, a demotion to dwarf planet, but for the largest minor planets in the main asteroid belt it meant an upgrade to dwarf planet.

To end with, let’s go REALLY off-grid and enter the world of science fiction. Perhaps the nearest intelligent life outside our solar system might live on planets orbiting our nearest interstellar neighbours – Alpha and Proxima Centauri. Whether this life will take the form of centaurs is unlikely, but certain British people of my generation may remember the name Alpha Centauri as producing one of the most memorable science fiction aliens of all time. In 1973 and 1974 there were two stories in “Doctor Who” which featured a diplomat of the Galactic Federation from the Alpha Centauri system. It was a strange, amusingly phallic-shaped alien with six tentacles (very good at table tennis, a more recent Doctor remarked) and one huge eye. When asked by his companion what gender Alpha Centauri was the Doctor replied “it’s a hermaphrodite hexapod”.

Whichever form of life lives in the Centaurus constellation, whether a centaur or hermaphrodite hexapod, it’s reassuring to think that gender variation might exist in outer space!

Olympic Alphabet : R is for ...

RESERVES, ALTERNATES AND TRIALS

When considering which athletes can be called an Olympian the criteria is the athlete’s actual participation in competition at the games. To get there the athletes had to be selected by their national Olympic committees. This is often done based on results at Olympic trials and qualifying events.

Many athletes have competed in trials but never made the national team. Some have almost made it by being named a reserve or alternate member, someone who can be called up to compete at a moment’s notice, perhaps, in the result of a selected athlete being unable to compete. So let’s have a look today at those athletes who are not on the official IOC lists - the reserve and alternate athletes, together with competitors at Olympic trial and team selection events.

I haven’t done an extensive research of the Olympic qualifying events and trials, mainly because there are so many of them and often its difficult to determine which of the earlier events acted as Olympic qualifiers, so this can only be just a snapshot of the handful of lgbt athletes I’ve been able to find.

Nottingham had the honour of hosting the European archery championships which served as the qualifying event for the continental archers for Rio. The finals were held in the old market square just a couple of blocks from where I live. Naturally, our Robin Hood was in attendance. Unfortunately, on the day of the finals there was a bomb scare in the block of flats where and I live and I spent the whole day behind police barriers praying my home wouldn’t get blown up!

One of the earliest lgbt athletes once thought to have competed at an Olympic trial was the “Father of Computer Science” Alan Turing, an avid runner who was believed to have competed in the British marathon trials for the London 1948 Olympics. It appears that he competed in a national championship event before the trials. He didn’t compete in the actual trials due to injury.

Another Brit competed in the 1968 British figure skating championships that formed the qualifying event for the Grenoble Winter Olympics, John Curry, at that time the British Junior Champion. His second place in the championships secured him a reserve spot on Team GB for Grenoble. Even at this early stage in his career there were rumours of his sexuality circulating within the sport. Four years later he earned a full place on the Olympic team at the Sapporo games.

Across the “pond” in the USA the 1968 national figure skating championships had two lgbt figure skaters hoping for a place at Grenoble – Rick Inglesi and John Carrell. Neither of them made either the reserve or main team.

Below is the current list of the few lgbt athletes who have competed in trials and qualified as reserve or alternate team members (years given) but who never subsequently made the final national Olympic teams.
Angelo D’Agostino (USA, figure skating) 1988 Calgary
Carol Blazejowski (USA, basketball) 1976 Montréal
Gina Gomez (USA, badminton) 1996 Atlanta
Lori Lindsey (USA, football) 2012 London
Mason Phelps (USA, equestrianism) 1968 Mexico City
Alfred Reft (USA, volleyball) 2008 Beijing
Adam Rippon (USA, figure skating) 2010 Vancouver
Saskia Webber (USA, football) 1996 Atlanta
Courtney Yamada-Anderson (USA, skeleton bobsleigh) 2006 Turin

At the moment we are still in a period of Olympic selection with many trials and qualifying events still to be held. As well as the archery trials held near my home I followed the US diving trials online as well. Even before they began there was some lgbt media interest in the event centred on young diver Jordan Windle. He had already come under the lgbt radar back in 2012 when, at the age of 13, he was selected for the US Olympic diving trials. Apart from his young age the reason he attracted attention was because his parents were, and still are, a gay male couple. As far as I can tell Jordan is the world’s first competitor in any Olympic trial event with same-sex parents.

The recent diving trials may not have had any out lgbt divers but among the coaches and judges there were some familiar lgbt names. Stanford University was fielding several divers. Stanford’s Head Diving Coach is former Olympian Patrick Jeffrey. He represented the USA at the Seoul and Atlanta Olympics and acted as a coach in Sydney. Two lgbt judges were also at the diving trials – Simon Latimer and Jeff Stabile. Simon was judge at the London 2012 diving competition, and Jeff was judge at the Olympic US diving trials in 2012. Simon is an Outgames diving champion and Jeff is a Gay Games diving champion.

Some of the athletes who were unsuccessful in qualifying for Rio 2016 are likely to try again for Tokyo 2020. These include Rose Cossar (Canada, gymnastics), Ari-Pekka Liukkonen (Finland, swimming), both of whom were at London 2012; and Connor Taras (Canada, kayak) and Sam Sendel (Canada, trampoline) among others. They are names worth keeping an eye on in four years time.

Star-Gayzing on Asteroid Day

Do you remember that fiery meteorite that flashed through the skies of Russia a couple of years ago? They are called meteorites, but they are also asteroids. It was one of many thousands of asteroids whose orbits cross ours. Another one crashed into the Sahara desert in 2008. And I mentioned yet another one last time in my solstice article. But perhaps the most famous modern incident of an asteroid impact is the Tunguska Event of 30 June 1908, another Russian impact. The old photos which show the flattened, stripped trees still provide haunting images of what might happened if the asteroid had crashed into a populated area.

There is always a danger of some significant impact from an asteroid yet to be discovered, which is one reason why Asteroid Day was created in 2014 on the anniversary of the Tunguska Event. It was the brainchild of Brian May, famous as a member of the rock band Queen and less famous as an astronomer, and Grigorij Richters, a film director who’s film “51 Degrees North” was about an asteroid impact on London. The aim of Asteroid Day is to raise awareness of the dangers of asteroid impact and the closer study of such asteroids.

This gives me the excuse to look at the asteroids with lgbt names again. First of all, I use the word asteroid most of the time, though the term minor planet is the more official one. So, what about those Earth-crossing asteroids, the ones who may eventually hit us? How many of them are named after members of the lgbt community?

Most important of them all is an asteroid after which a whole group has been named, asteroid 1862 Apollo (the numbers preceding the names are the official asteroid numbers). The Greek god Apollo makes a regular appearance on this blog because of various same-sex aspects of his legends (again, he was mentioned in connection to the summer solstice a couple of days ago).

A lot of the Earth-crossing asteroids are named after Greek gods and heroes, all of whom are assumed to have engaged in the customary practice of taking young male lovers during their years of training. There are asteroids named after Adonis, Bacchus, Daedalus, Dionysus, Hephaistos, Heracles, Hermes, Hypnos, Icarus, Jason, Midas, Minos, Morpheus, Orpheus, Pan, Poseidon, Zephyr and Zeus. Several of these gods and heroes have appeared on this blog before.

Only one of the Earth-crossing asteroids has been named after a real lgbt person, (1863) Antinous, named after the partner of the Emperor Hadrian and who once had a constellation named after him.

Now for the update on previous lists. As in previous lists these asteroids belong to various groups, not just the Apollo Earth-crossers. As before I’ll give them in order of discovery, followed by their official number and name, date of discovery, then by part of the official citation, and finally any information on the lgbt connection. I’ve linked some back to articles I’ve written about them in the past.

(1208) Troilus                        Discovered 31 Dec 1931. “Named for the son of Priam (asteroid 884) who in a medieval legend loved Cressida (asteroid 548) and lost her to Diomedes (asteroid 1437). Troilus was killed by Achilles (asteroid 588).” Achilles was attracted to the handsome young Prince Troilus, though whether he was able to have any physical relationship is not made clear in the ancient legends.

(5451) Plato    Discovered 24 Sept. 1960. “Named after Plato (c. 428-348 BC), the most famous pupil of Sokrates (asteroid 5450). He was the founder of the philosophical Academy near Athens, which existed for over 900 years. His preserved papers were written in dialogue form as the ‘lessons’ of Sokrates. His philosophy has strongly influenced the western world to the present day. Plato is also honoured by a lunar crater.” Even though the idea of a non-sexual relationship is termed platonic after Plato, ancient sources also record his same-sex partners.

(12154) Callimachus             Discovered 26 March 1971. “Callimachus of Cyrene (c.305–c.240 BC) was a Hellenistic scholar and poet who worked in Alexandria, where he compiled a catalogue of the famous library. He wrote the poem “Coma Berenices” commemorating the creation of the eponymous constellation by Conon of Samos in 246 BC.” Callimachus was one of the most influential of the Greek poets, and his writing often describes boy-love and offer hints to a same-sex relationship with Theocritus, another Greek poet.

(8621) Jimparsons    Discovered 1 March 1981. “American actor James Joseph ‘Jim’ Parsons (b.1973) portrays the fictional Caltech theoretical physicist Dr. Sheldon Lee Cooper in the television sitcom ‘The Big Bang Theory’.”

(4570) Runcorn         Discovered 14 Aug. 1985. “Named in memory of Stanley Keith Runcorn (1922-1985), British geophysicist. Runcorn’s research centred on the magnetic properties of rocks. He used their palaeomagnetic signatures to make an important contribution to the emerging theory of plate tectonics, and he also studied the magnetism of the Moon, convection in planetary interiors, and geomagnetic polarity reversals. For many years head of the department of physics at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Runcorn was celebrated for his organisation of his NATO-sponsored international scientific discussion meetings.”

(6639) Marchis      Discovered 25 Sept. 1989. “Franck Marchis (b.1973) exploited the high-resolution capabilities offered by adaptive optics from ground-based telescopes to survey hundreds of main-belt minor planets and Trojans. In 2004 he led the team that discovered (87) Sylvia II (Remus), the only case where a main-belt object is known to have a second satellite.”  STOP PRESS : Two days ago (28 June 2016) the Czech Supreme Court finally overturned the ban on lgbt couples and individuals adopting children. The case of Franck Marchis and Jindra Vackar was the one which pioneered the ruling.

(5190) Fry       Discovered 16 Oct. 1990. “Stephen Fry (b.1957) is an English writer, actor, comedian, TV presenter and activist. He studied English Literature at Cambridge University, where he was very active in the Cambridge Footlights. Fry is the long-time host of the BBC comedy quiz show ‘QI’.”

(10211) La Spezia      Discovered 6 Sept. 1997. “La Spezia is a town near the Monte Viseggi Observatory. It is famous for its Poets’ Gulf, in honour of the 19th-century English poets Byron (asteroid 3306) and Shelley, who lived, loved and died in Italy, the country of their adoption.”

(22788) von Steuben             Discovered 15 May 1999. “A Prussian military officer, Friedrich Wilhelm Augustin Ludolf Gerhard von Steuben (1730–1794), taught standards of military drill and discipline to the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. Steuben Day parades (September) in New York and other American cities celebrate German culture.” Von Steuben was unmarried and recent research suggests very heavily that he was gay. Many people, including the family of President John Adams, considered him to be gay. For the founding father of the US military, this makes the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that the States had for so many years somewhat hypocritical.

END NOTE: I mentioned Asteroid Day being founded by Grigorij Richters and Brian May. While neither of them are lgbt you might be interested to known that the most recent published list of new asteroid names (5 June 2015) includes one named after Richters. Brian May, incidentally, had an asteroid named after him in 2008.

Olympic Alphabet : Q is for ...

QUIZ

If, like me, you won’t be able to get anywhere near any Pride House Olympic party you can host your own. Get a few friends around, grab a few drinks and nibbles, and turn the opening ceremony of the Rio Olympics and Paralympics into the biggest house party you’ve had since the Eurovision Song Contest.

Here’s a quiz for you and your guests. It might be an idea to get some appropriate images off the internet and make up some questions of your own. You can decide if some answers deserve more than one point.

Q1)      Without sneaking a peek, what is the colour of the middle ring on the top row on the Olympic flag?

A)        Black.

 

Q2)      In which year was the Olympic torch relay first fun?
                        a) Amsterdam 1926
                        b) Berlin 1936
                        c) London 1948

A)        b) Berlin 1936

 

Q3)      The Paralympic Games originate in games held for injured armed forces personnel at Stoke Mandeville hospital shortly after World War II. In which year?

A)        1948.

 

Q4)      Which Olympic games, so far, has had the most identified lgbt athletes?
                        a) Sydney 2000.
                        b) Athens 2004.
                        c) London 2012.

A)        a) Sydney 2000.

 

Q5)      To within 5 either way, how many lgbt athletes have been identified at the Sydney 2000 Olympics?

A)        54.

 

Q6)      After the Olympic flame is lit at Olympia it goes on a relay around Greece before the ceremonial handover to the host nation at the Panathenaiko stadium. In which city is the Panathenaiko stadium?

A)        Athens.

 

Q7)      Which international sporting event, held every 4 years since 1982, was created specifically for lgbt athletes and their allies by Tom Waddell, an athlete at the 1968 Mexico Olympics?
                        a) The Gay Games.
                        b) The Out Games.
                        c) The Pride Games.

A)        a) The Gay Games.

 

Q8)      Which Olympic sport has had the most known lgbt athletes?
                        a) figure skating.
                        b) football.
                        c) swimming.

A)        b) football (28, only 2 of them are men).

 

Q9)      In 1960 the Paralympic Games were held in the same host city as the Olympics for the first time? Which city?

A)        Rome.

 

Q10)    Renée Sintenis is the first identified lgbt Olympic medallist, but it wasn’t in sport, it was in the art competition. In which art form did she win her medal?
                        a) music.
                        b) painting.
                        c) sculpture.

A)        c) sculpture.

 

Q11)    Martina Navratilova is the oldest female lgbt Olympian. How old was she when she competed in tennis at the Athens 2004 Olympics?

A)        47.

 

Q12)    Ian Thorpe, the lgbt Olympian to win more medals than any other (5 gold, 3 silver, 1 bronze), carried his national flag at the closing ceremony of the games held in his home nation. Which city and nation?

A)        Sydney, Australia.

 

Q13)    In 2012 London became the first city to host 3 summer Olympic Games. Earlier in 2012 which Austrian city became the first to host 3 winter Olympic Games?

A)        Innsbruck - 1964, 1972, 2012 (Youth Winter Olympics).

 

Q14)    Six Olympians have died of AIDS. All except one competed in the same sport of which John Curry is the most famous victim. Which sport?

A)        Figure skating.

 

Q15)    Who is the odd one out in this list of lgbt Olympians, and why?
                        Tom Daley
                        Greg Louganis
                        Ian Thorpe

A)        Ian Thorpe, he’s a swimmer, the other two are divers.

 

Q16)    And which is the odd one out in this list of lgbt Olympic tennis players, and why?
                        Gigi Fernandez
                        Martina Navratilova
                        Amélie Mauresmo

A)        Martina Navratilova – she never won an Olympic medal, the other two did.

 

Q17)    Singer k d lang has performed in two Olympic Winter games ceremonies, both of them in her home nation. Which nation?

A)        Canada – Calgary 1988 closing ceremony, Vancouver 2010 opening ceremony.

 

Q18)    The American diver Greg Louganis made history at the 1988 Seoul Olympics by defending both gold medals he won in 1984. But what other incident is Greg most remembered for at the Seoul Olympics?

A)        Hitting his head on the diving board.

 

Q19)    Of the 230 known lgbt Olympians, how many (within 5 either way) have won gold medals?

A)        54.

 

Q20)    The London Gay Men’s Chorus sang at the opening ceremony of which Paralympic Games?

A)        London 2012.

Here Comes the Sun

It doesn’t matter who or what you believe in, this time of year is celebrated the whole world over because of one thing, and one thing alone – the Sun. A couple of days ago people celebrated the solstice, the astronomical point in the Earth’s orbit where hours of daylight in the northern hemisphere and of night-time in the southern hemisphere are at their greatest.

You don’t need to believe in any god or deity to realise that this happens every year. Ancient civilisations knew this as well. They used the solstices and equinoxes to mark specific times in their calendar and determine when their year begins and when to plant and harvest crops, etc. They were points to celebrate. Just when these celebrations began to be associated with deities will never be known, but over the centuries the ritual elements of these celebrations became more important. People around the world have different myths and stories about the importance of the summer solstice. And just like people today who celebrate summer with a holiday so did the ancients, a religious holiday.

Here are some stories of the summer solstice that embrace lgbt aspects.

One of my favourite stories is that of Apollo and his young lover Prince Hyakinthos. My own retelling of this story is found here. Another favourite story concerns the camp young Roman Emperor known as Elegabalus. He was the hereditary high priest of the Syrian sun god, which was worshipped in the form of a meteorite. I retell that story here. When he brought the sacred meteorite to Rome he built an elaborate temple to house it. He also created a festival in its honour at the summer solstice. For three successive solstices Elegabalus brought out the stone and paraded it though the streets of Rome in as splendid a manner as its arrival in 218. The event was depicted on coins from his reign (pictured below). It wasn’t long before the Roman senate and the military ganged up and assassinated the 18-year-old emperor and shipped his beloved lump of rock back to Syria where it vanished from history.

An earlier emperor fared better and used the solstice to commemorate another imported god. During the time of the Emperor Hadrian the Egyptian goddess Isis was introduced into the Roman Pantheon. Recent archaeological research has suggested that Hadrian used both the summer and winter solstices to plan the lay-out of some of his villas.

One of Hadrian’s villas, some 30 kilometres east of Rome, has an elongated vertical slit above the entrance doorway and the summer solstice sun shone through it and illuminated a niche inside the entrance hall. This niche probably contained a statue of Isis.

In another of Hadrian’s buildings, a temple, the solstice sun shines through a series of doorways which produces an illuminated passageway. This would have been used during ritual celebrations of the solstice. Many archaeologists support these ideas and suggest that these and other examples of seasonally-aligned buildings should be studied more closely. So far only more ancient buildings like Stonehenge have been studied.

An even earlier emperor planned whole cities aligned towards the sun. Alexander the Great built many cities wherever he conquered. Historians have previously believed that these had no uniform plan but in the last couple of years a theory has been put forward to suggest that Alexander deliberately planned several cities that had streets aligned to point to the rising sun on his birthday just after the summer solstice.

When was Alexander’s birthday? Ancient sources record that he was born on the 6^th day of the New Year. Their year began on the day of the first new Moon after the summer solstice. Modern astronomers have calculated that this event occurred on the equivalent date to our 14^th July in the year Alexander was born. Alexander was born six days later.

The most famous of Alexander’s cities was Alexandria on the Nile delta in Egypt. Research carried out by Luisa Ferro and Giulio Magli has suggested that Alexandria was planned around one specific road, called the Canopic road. This led from the Nile to Abukir Bay. The rest of Alexandria radiates out from this road. At either end were constructed city gates which came to be known as the Gate of the Sun (as the eastern end) and the Gate of the Moon (at the western end). Just like the Sun illuminated the niche in Hadrian’s villa on the solstice, so it did on Alexander’s birthday along the Canopic road. To the people of Alexandria this was proof of Alexander’s power as a living god.

Alexandria became the model for other Hellenistic cities which are also aligned to astronomical events. Again, archaeologists are generally supportive of this idea though some offer coincidence as some explanation – as I’ve said in the past, I don’t believe in coincidence.

The Seven Heavenly Gay Virtues : Charity Begins at Home

At first glance it might be puzzling to write about the virtue of Charity on World Refugee Day. Like the names of some other Heavenly Virtues the word charity has a meaning that isn’t generally remembered. Charity also has the meaning of “caring for others more than for yourself”. You give to others at your own expense. Charity is not just about donating money to organisations, it also includes voluntary action and acceptance of others into your social environment.

When we place Charity against its Deadly Sin counterpart of Greed we get a better idea of what it means. Greed is over-indulgence in anything or everything. Charity is the opposite. It’s not self-restraint in the same way as Temperance because that particular virtue and Greed are all about self and Charity is all about others. Can you see how this links to refugees? So, let’s place Charity on our Rainbow Virtue flag in the same colour associated in Medieval times with Greed.

Asylum and refuge goes way back to ancient times. The Biblical Exodus and the Mayflower Pilgrims are famous stories of refugees and asylum seeking. I’ve also written on this blog about the Masquerader, a Serbian refugee who lived in Nottingham a century ago.

It wasn’t until as recently as 2010 that the UK’s lgbt rights charity Stonewall conducted a survey into the workings of the UK immigration service when it applies to lgbt asylum seekers and refugees, which I’ll come to later.

Stonewall formed an Immigration Group in 1993 but asylum wasn’t its focus. Many foreign nationals were in relationships with UK nationals. Many of these foreign nationals were being deported because the law did not recognise same-sex relationships. Most of those were sent back to their home countries where homosexuality was not even illegal and there was no more chance of persecution than in the UK. Stonewall was campaigning for the rights of UK nationals with foreign partners rather than lgbt asylum seekers and refugees.

Stonewall lobbied Opposition parties (I can find no evidence that they even attempted any serious contact with the government or immigration service). After several years the Opposition party was elected to power and after much delay introduced the “unmarried partners concession” which applied to both lgbt and straight couples. But still Stonewall showed no interest in any similar lobbying campaign for cases of lgbt asylum seekers escaping persecution and death threats.

It was 2003 before Stonewall began to think about the issue. It took them another six years before they realised there were problems with the process and the Labour government refused to change their policy. Stonewall’s 2010 report highlighted the out-dated and unreliable information and advice the government was providing.

Stonewall’s report also found that lgbt asylum seekers were often too afraid and embarrassed to reveal the true reason for seeking asylum on grounds of their sexuality because the Labour government had introduced it’s “prove it” policy. This often resulted in their cases being turned down (the government regarded them as not being honest enough at the outset, or of using sexuality as a last excuse). Immigration officials also told asylum seekers when deported back into danger to be “more discreet” about their sexuality. The government introduced a “fast-track” procedure for lgbt asylum seekers. This was another reason many of them didn’t mention their sexuality on their asylum claim - their cases would take longer to process by doing so and they’d stay in safety longer.

It wasn’t until after Labour was replaced by a Coalition government shortly after the publication of the Stonewall report that the “be discreet” was dropped and the “prove it” policy relaxed.

There are still many problems in the lgbt asylum process in the UK. There have been successes and failures, but still the UK has a better record than most other European countries.

With the USA calling itself the “land of the free” it may come as a surprise to learn that they have often barred people from entering the country. Their Immigration Act of 1917 specifically banned ALL lgbt immigrants because homosexuality was considered to be a disease. This ban was only lifted in 1980, long after the USA began claiming to be pioneers of lgbt rights. Ten years later lgbt refugees and asylum seekers were regarded as “a particular social group” under the terms of the US Board of Immigration Appeals. The first refugee accepted into the US under those terms was Marcelo Tenorio from Brazil in 1993 (Canada, by the way, beat them by over a year, accepting an Argentinian gay refugee in January 1992). The first successful lgbt asylum claim in the EU countries was in 1997 after an Algerian activist was targeted by police and extremists. He was granted asylum in France.

The plight of lgbt refugees continues to hit the headlines. Just a couple of months ago lgbt refugees fleeing Syria were attacked by fellow refugees in a camp in Germany purely because of their sexuality.

It’s a difficult issue for governments and society in general. Asylum has never been simple or easy. Whatever ethical or spiritual opinions we all have there is no harm in following that Biblical phrase “faith, hope and charity, and the greatest of these is charity”. The asylum seekers’ faith (whether in the religion, regime or process), and their hope of escape from persecution will not work effectively without the virtue of Charity/Love from others.