Lavender Footprints: Gays, History, and Human Progress

Lavender Footprints
Gays, History, and Human Progress

FOREWORD. Do we choose to be gay or straight, or discover that we are? Is it a matter of nature or nurture? It does not seem to be a question of with whom one has sex, for same-gender sexuality is common in prisons. Just as opposite-gender love can be celibate, so too can same-gender love. Might it not be a question, then, of with whom one falls in love, the gender of one’s most significant other? Since no one really knows, perhaps it makes more sense to refocus the question and ask what gays have done for a better world. Despite the persecution gay people have suffered, their lavender footprints reflect some giant, if little-known, steps in the long road of human progress.

THE BIBLE. Jonathan loved David at first sight (1 Sam. 18:1-4). He made a covenant with David and gave him his sword, his bow, his girdle, and his throne. They kissed and wept when they were parted (20:41). David wept when Jonathan was killed in battle; he said that Jonathan’s love for him surpassed the love of women (both had wives). These two men were clearly each other’s most significant other. Theirs may be the greatest story of romantic love in the Bible, like the story of Alfred Lord Tennyson and Arthur Hallam. This deeper understanding of human love--that it is a matter of the soul and not the anatomy or the purse--was written in lavender ink. Think about it.

Ref: “Jonathan Loved David,” T. Horner, Westminster Press, 1978.

THE EARLIER CHRISTIAN CHURCH. We have gay saints, but not many; for homosexuality was long equated with sodomy, a heresy punishable by death. The 4th century soldier-martyrs Sts. Serge and Bacchus were married to each other. Most of our gay saints were celibates from the 11-12th centuries, a period of tolerance before the Black Death. Among them were St. Anselm of Canterbury, Doctor of the Church, Father of Scholasticism, and Archbishop of Canterbury. Other prominent celibate saints include St. Aelred of Rivaulx, founder of a community for gay celibates, and St. Bernard of Clairvaux, also a Doctor of the Church, buried in the same grave as his beloved St. Malachi, in Malachi’s clothes, who died in his arms. (In modern times, incidentally, Cardinal John Henry Newman, at his request, was buried in the same grave as his companion Rev. Ambrose St. John.) These saints were not the miracle workers of today; they were mentors of the human spirit. Their footprints were lavender, their heritage golden.

Ref: “Who’s Who in Gay Lesbian History,” R. Aldrich & G. Wotherspoon, Routledge, 2001. “Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality,” J. Boswell, University of Chicago, 1980, and “Same-Sex Unions in Pre-modern Europe,” J. Boswell, Random House, 1994. “Know My Name,” R. Cleaver, Westminster John Knox, 1995. “Gay and Lesbian Literary Heritage,” ed. Claude Summers, Henry Holt, 1997.

THE MODERN WORLD. Our gay heritage is everywhere today, but until recently it was the victim of a rampant homophobia which sought to colour its lavender white; thus we assumed that our benefactors were all heterosexuals and our homosexuals were all degenerates. For example, in literature, outstanding contributions were made by such gays as W.H. Auden (his companion was Chester Kallman), in music, by Baron Benjamin Britten (Sir Peter Pears), and in the theatre, by Baron Laurence Olivier (Danny Kaye). Lesbian social activists Jane Addams (Mary Rozet Smith) and Susan B. Anthony (Elizabeth Cady Stanton) challenged the model which made women second-class citizens. We owe our consciousness of the environment to another lesbian, Rachel Carson (Dorothy Murdoch Freeman). Gay black-civil-rights leader Bayard Rustin (Walter Naegle) taught Martin Luther King Jr. non-violent resistance. Another closeted lesbian, Eleanor Roosevelt (Lorena Hickock), brought the Charter of Human Rights before the UN. Dr. Tom Dooley (Cliff Anchor), proposed as a candidate for Roman Catholic sainthood before his sexual orientation was known, saved thousands of boat people in Vietnam. In the present economic meltdown, we are espousing the doctrines of another gay man, the economist John Maynard Keynes (Francis Birrell). Can one think of freedom and not of U.N. Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold; and U.S. President Abraham Lincoln (Joshua Speed)? There are lavender footprints everywhere.

Ref: “Who’s Who in Gay and Lesbian History” (as above). “Completely Queer, The Gay and Lesbian Encyclopedia,” S. Hogan and L. Hudson, Henry Holt, 1998. “Love Stories – Sex between Men before Homosexuality,” Jonathan Katz, University of Chicago, 2001.
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Are gay people a threat to society? Should they pay the same taxes as you and not have the same rights? Is that the good news of Jesus?

Jim Komar, St. James’ Anglican Church, Integrity/Saskatoon