tell me about gay people and history?

Question

i need to know about gay people and stuff. i am doing a thing 4 school. plz tell me about history. and i am debating about it in school.......and i need people that are for it and people aganist it....and just to let u all know i am...bi

Answer 1

Talk about those French poets, Verlaine and Rimbaud, they were gay and the best poets ever. They made history.

In sports, (I'm a NBA fan) John Amaechi, an ex center published a book recently and admitted he is gay. JJ Reddick from Duke has never hide himself from it.

Singers like Elton John and Melissa Ethridge who have big a** career and publicly gay

Comedians Ellen Degeneres, Rosie O'Donnell...

The super hit tv show The L Word with Leisha Hailey (she did a documentary on being gay and having kids)

The Canadian law allowing gay marriages (Prime Minister Stephen Harper is against it)

Gay parades, LA... Lots of stuff to talk about. Greek were really at easy with homosexuality...

Think about movies like Brokeback Mountain and Alexander.

Answer 2

Hey Kibby... alright, I really like ur question. Anyway, there is SO much cool stuff in history regarding gay people.... and then there are a lot of terrable things regarding gay people.

Things to research.
Ancient Greece - The Spartans actually practiced homosexuality for most of their lives. The men would actually go off into the wild with their chosen 'mentor' for most of their teens. It was commom to practice homosexuality with these 'mentors'. When they got back to society, they were expected to find a wife so they could have kids and keep the population going. There's a lot more interesting information about their society out there, I would first look at Wikipedia, and then others. I'm not sure where you would find it now, because I was given this information in a Highschool class. A funny thing I remember from it, was the Spartans had some problems with boys that came back as men, and did not want to find a wife, which really hurt their population at times.

Keywords: The Sacred Band (a group of 300 gay greek soldiers that were great fighters and faught with their 'love' together.) and The Island of Lesbos (there's lots of goodies on this topic).

You could also look at the holocaust. I think many people are aware of how many jewish people were murdered during that time period, but you could definately find how many gay people were killed during this crime. This will be easier to find information on.


The people that are against it don't really have any proof, other than their 'readings' in the bible. If you want to sound more educated in school, I'd first talk about the Holocaust, and how Gay people WERE killed at those times for doing nothing wrong, only in the eyes of Hitler.
Then you could go into an explanation of the Greeks, and how in some ancient greek city-states, homosexuality was the norm, and just an everyday part of life, and people accepted it.

Answer 3

I'm not gay, and I'm not "for it". But as long a they leave me out of it I don't really care what they want to do. I can tell you it's been going on for centuries in some form or other. The Romans used to have big orgies, and they would "do" any and every body there. A number of high powered kings were into doing young boys, and had slaves just for that purpose. I don't think they had a name for it back then, they just did what they felt like doing. It's definitely not a modern mindset though.

You might want to go to Google and type in History of Sex.

Answer 4

There are a number of good websites with this information:

http://www.lambda.org/famous.htm

http://www.gayheroes.com/main.htm

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/pwh/

Just google 'gay history' or 'famous gay people' and you will get quite a bit.

My personal favorites are Leonardo Da Vinci and Katharine Lee Bates (who wrote 'America the Beautiful.')

Answer 5

Research the Greek and Roman Empire the first civiled societies to practice and condon homosexuality.

The word "Gymnasium" comes from the Greek meaning place where boys play naked.

They also created the Island of Lesbos.

These should get you started.

Answer 6

You can ask that question here but you can't do a simple google search and find out some credible information for your debate? Why do you have a computer if you can't use it?

He he he, well, I'm not one to talk, I still can't get my picture or avatare thing to show up and can't figure out how to get anyone to check out my stupid 360 page, but at least I can google the directions, I just can't follow them.

Answer 7

Well gayness went all the way back to greek times. but thats all i know but its a start for you and the greeks agreed with gayness whilst the nazis murdered gays

Answer 8

Well, I can't give you everything; you're going to need to do some research on the topic yourself if you want to make a good presentation. But here are some highlights:

1) Homosexuality in ancient times:

a. In Ancient Rome and Greece, "boy love" was often practiced between older and younger men, as well as between men of the same age. It wasn't frowned upon, but seen as natural, although men were still required and encouraged to marry women (someone being exclusively homosexual wasn't really conceivable; you liked men as an extra desire). Similarly, lesbianism was made famous by the poetess Sappho, who, so it is said, created the all-female island of Lesbos and did her thing with the other gals.

b. In ancient Japan, similar love between older and younger men was condoned, and in some cases, the entire relationship between samurai and protoge was considered 'the purest love' of all in the society. Again, however, like in Rome and Greece, men were expected to marry and have children as well.

c. The Bible tells the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, a town which was destroyed for its sinning. The story is still immensely crucial; some say the sin that the city committed was that of homosexuality, and that's why it was destroyed. Others cite the fact that the Bible makes reference to the lack of hospitality Sodom and Gomorrah showed, which incurred God's wrath. It is unclear which is the correct interpretation (I'm for the latter). Whatever the reason, the term 'sodomites' (one who practices anal sex) has descended from 'Sodom'.

2) Pre-Modern Times

a. Homosexuality has definitely been alive and kicking since the ancient times, not openly practiced, but something everyone did know about and which was tolerated in private but usually denouced in public. In the early 19th century in America, many single women lived together in so-called "Boston marriages". Some of these relationships were purely platonic . . . others were not. Similarly, in those times and earlier, in both London and America (and, presumably, other places as well), there were so-called "madge houses" and other shelters for gay men.

Modern Times:

a. Along with the rest of the population, sexual orientation boundaries got stretched with the sexual revolution that started in the early 1960's and moved full-swing into the 70's. Along with using mind-expanding drugs, more people expanded their concepts of sex, too. As feminism started to take root among college campuses, lesbianism became a very strong statement to make about men and the partiarchy and all that. While women were getting the ideologies of woman-woman sexuality down, gay men were already focused on the sex itself, and many 'bathhouses' were established. During the 70's, gay male promiscuity and casual sex was often the norm, almost always practiced without safe sex, leading to:

b.The AIDS scare of the 80's. AIDS spread like wildfire through the gay male population, due mostly in part to the fact that anal sex increases likeliness of transmission, and safe sex was rarely practiced back before the disease was widely known. Too, the rampant drug use of the 60's and 70's, with casual needle sharing, probably only served as another way to spread AIDS. Currently, the disease has been reigned in to some extent, safe sex is stressed, and there is medicine to at least battle it. Today, it is countries like Africa that are ravaged by AIDS, particularly the heterosexual, and not homosexual, populations.

c. Between the gay scene explosion of the 60's and 70's, there was a huge turning stone in gay history: the Stonewall Riots. Police had often come in and raided the gay bars in towns, usually harassing the patrons. On June 28, 1969, the people of Stonewall Inn in Greenwich village fought back against the police in a violent protest that lasted several days and focused attention on the injustices done to the GLBT community. Today, the Stonewall Riots are a hugely important milestone in gay history.

d. Within the 90's, gay pride was fostered and the GLBT community came together. Here you have the birth of "Queer Nation", a concept that unified many non-mainstream genders and sexualities under one encompassing umbrella of solidarity. Gay pride parades start their marches; the media begins to embrace homosexuality in several films (not that they hadn't done so before, but now in a bigger way). The hate-related deaths of Brandon Teena and Matthew Shepard cause GLBT folks across the nation and even the world to rally to the cause and bring more media attention and spotlight injustices. Hate crime laws are enacted in some places.

e.Religious forces battle GLBT. From then on, and still currently, gay rights have met tremendous opposition, from a variety of people- religious right-wing conservatives, traditionalists, etc., etc.. In many countries besides the U.S., gays fare much better, receiving equal rights and marriage licenses (the Netherlands, Canada, Spain, and so on). In 2004, San Francisco mayer Gavin Newsome authorized gay marriages to take place in his city. He was soon shut down, but the event put intense focus on the issue of gay marriage. It has become an issue of whether it is a state's right to choose to allow gay marriage or not, and G.W. Bush appears to want to push for a Constitutional Amendment banning same-sex marriage. In the meantime, some states do offer civil union partnerships which are similar to marriages in their states.

f. Even though many people still frown on homosexuality, it has been embraced by many people, gays and straights alike, who champion its rights. Recently, the 2005 film Brokeback Mountain spurred a huge response in the population. Though there have been many other gay films in the past, the tale of two fairly masculine gay cowboys struck a chord, won many awards, and has seemed to spawn an almost chic hip attitude towards homosexuality. Other media displays, from same-sex kisses between Madonna and Britney, the coming out of many celebrities, have appeared to open the doors for gayness to be seen in a more positive light by the general population (not, of course, the extremists).

Well, that's a very brief, very summarized history. You may want to look at this site for a specific timeline:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_LGBT_history

I sure hope you're debating for GLBT causes! Good luck!

Answer 9

this is one site
http://www.qrd.org/qrd/www/orgs/avproject/famous.htm

another one that gives good info is this one
http://www.gaybiz.com/say/history/