The Dictionary of Homophobia (26 page)
The intense media coverage sparked the largest national “anti-gay” campaign ever, the likes of which the country had not seen since the days of
McCarthyism
. Anti-gay lobbying groups were created in cities and counties that had either adopted anti-discrimination legislation or were about to, particularly in the Great Plains and Rockies states that were known for their strong, puritanical, Protestant tendencies; this led to the repeal of the legislation in cities such as St Paul, Minnesota;Wichita, Kansas; and Eugene, Oregon. Also, the state of Oklahoma approved a law allowing the dismissal of any teacher who “practiced” homosexuality, and California senator John Briggs attempted to launch a state referendum (“Proposition 6”) that would ban the hiring of openly gay teachers (an initiative that was rejected with help from both Republican and Democratic anti-Briggs forces such as Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, and President Carter). This legislative turmoil and anti-gay lobbying was matched by an increase in instances of homophobic
violence
throughout the US, including the murder of a San Francisco gardener, whose mother declared: “His blood is on the hands of Anita Bryant.”
Ironically, Anita Bryant’s actions had the additional effect of provoking the largest mobilization of gays and lesbians since
Stonewall
, inspiring protests in major cities as well as a boycott of Florida Citrus Commission products (for which Bryant was spokesperson). And it could be said that despite her success in repealing the Miami ordinance, Bryant’s career was never the same again, as she would always be linked to her anti-gay campaign.
—
Pierre-Olivier Busscher
Bryant, Anita.
The Anita Bryant Story: The Survival of Our Nation’s Families and the Threat of Militant Homosexuality
. Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell, 1977.
Shilts, Randy.
The Mayor of Castro Street
. New York: St Martin’s Press, 1983.
—Buchanan, Pat; McCarthy, Joseph; Music; North America.
BUCHANAN, Pat
Pat Buchanan—American politician, editorialist, Republican presidential candidate in 1992 and 1996, Reform Party presidential candidate in 2000 (the party created in 1995 by Texas billionaire Ross Perot)—is a symbol of American anti-gay activism fueled by evangelistic renewal and Republican Party-style conservatism. A staunch Catholic, Buchanan belongs to a generation of Americans who choose to overlook religious differences of the church to establish in the US a “Christian coalition” (including even orthodox Jews) united around common moral struggles, foremost among them being the fights against abortion rights and against gay and lesbian rights. An old supporter of Nixon and Reagan, Pat Buchanan is one of the main architects behind the “infiltration” of the Republican Party by the religious right, forcing even moderate party members to stand up for “the reestablishment of family values” (that is, against abortion and against homosexuality). A constant champion of Anita
Bryant’s
anti-homosexual campaign in the 1970s, the emergence of
AIDS
in the early 1980s gave Buchanan an opportunity to properly express his hatred toward gays, such as in a 1983 editorial when he explained that AIDS was nature’s revenge against those who had defied its order: “The poor homosexuals—they have declared war upon nature, and now nature is extracting an awful retribution.”
However, Pat Buchanan’s isolationist views on economics and international policy, as well as regular evidence of his anti-Semitism, slowly caused him to become marginalized and then ostracized by the Republican Party, leading to his exit just prior to the presidential campaign of 2000. His short-lived investiture in the Reform Party, despite opposition from founder Ross Perot and Jim Mangia, its national secretary (who himself was homosexual), lends hope for his continued political marginalization in a system of American politics in which most attempts at a “third path” between Republicans and Democrats end in failure.
—
Pierre-Olivier de Busscher
Adams, Barry, Jan Willem Duyvendak, and Andre Krouwell.
The Global Emergence of Gay and Lesbian Politics: National Imprints of a Worldwide Movement
. Philadelphia: Temple, 1999.
Miller, Neil.
Out of the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Present
. New York: Vintage, 1995.
—Boutin, Christine; Bryant, Anita; Hoover, J. Edgar; McCarthy, Joseph; North America.
BUDDHISM
During the middle of the fourteenth century, when St Francis Xavier and the early Christian missionaries discovered Japan, they were horrified by the “sodomite” environment that seemed to abound in the Buddhist monasteries they visited. Even if the Jesuits’ descriptions were probably quite exaggerated, homosexuality (or more specifically, pederasty) has always been associated with Buddhism in this country. From the late Middle Ages to early modern times, romantic relationships between monks and young male initiates seem to have been a common occurrence in monasteries. These initiates, usually adolescents, often wore facial powder and makeup, and were occasionally the object of internal struggles among the monks. Some texts trace this tradition all the way back to Kukai (774–835 CE), one of the great Japanese Buddhist saints, founder of the esoteric school of Shingon. Monks usually came from the nobility or the warrior class, where pederastic relationships, considered a cultural sophistication, were held in high regard while relations between men and women were held in a lower esteem. This type of love was considered under the benediction of Manjushri, the bodhisattva of wisdom, a mythical being who usually took on the form of a young man, and whose Japanese title, Monjushiri, even evoked the buttocks (
shiri
) of the ephebes….
However, these homosexual relationships involving Japanese monks were quite marginal, all the more so because monks of all schools of Buddhism were required to be chaste, and heterosexual relations forbidden. Paradoxically, these pederastic mores had a certain legitimacy, given the near absence of any reference in Buddhist writings to homosexual relations. This granted the relationships a tacit permission: “Homosexuality as such was never really discussed,” wrote Bernard Faure, a professor of Japanese religion. The early disciplinary texts went into great detail listing all the types of sexual relations forbidden to monks, including some rather improbable items (in the mouth of a frog, in the trunk of an elephant, etc.). Yet while heterosexual relations, onanism, and many forms of bestiality are laid out in meticulous detail, the interdiction of homosexual relations is hardly mentioned, and only in a roundabout way. For the devoted layman, Buddha proposes five moral precepts based on the principle of “Do not do unto others that which you would not have done to you”: do not kill, do not steal, etc. The third precept forbids “sexual misconduct,” a term so ambiguous that a famous Indian Buddhist commentary, the
Abhidharma-kosa
, defines it in detail by dividing it into four interdictions: sexual misconduct being the occurrence of sexual relations with a forbidden woman (e.g., a young girl, a married woman), in a forbidden way (e.g., fellatio, sodomy), in forbidden places (e.g., a temple), and during a forbidden time (e.g., menstruation). Technically, the forbidden ways never make direct reference to homosexual relations that are, as such, unknown.
Much attention has been paid to the term
pandaka
, given in the Buddhist canon to those individuals who are not permitted to become monks. Its ambiguous definition has been variously translated as eunuch, hermaphrodite, and even homosexual by certain Western translators. This exegesis merely demonstrates that it refers to a vague category of individuals whose psycho-physical sexual identity is unclear. Buddhagosa, a great Buddhist commentator of the fifth century, even categorized the impotent as
pandaka
. However, the rejection of this type of postulant does not necessarily imply a condemnation of homosexual relations as such, since the early Buddhist texts have strangely very little to say on the subject. Notwithstanding, throughout the long development of Buddhism over the years, a few negative scriptural references toward homosexuality can be found. A Buddhist text from the beginning of the Christian era describes a type of hell where homosexuals are inexorably drawn toward beings of fire, and are burned in mid-embrace. The
Samantapâsâdika
, a later text attributed to Buddhagosa (after centuries of uncertainty), states that monks are not to have relations with women, nor men, nor asexual beings (meaning the
pandaka
). In his Path of the Great Perfection, Patrul Rinpoche (1808–87), a great Tibetan erudite of the nineteenth century, describes sexual misconduct for the continuity of Indian texts: “Masturbation, having sexual relations with someone who is married or engaged, with an unattached person in the open, with someone observing the ritual fast of a day, with someone who is sick, with a woman who is pregnant or in pain, during menstruation, immediately after birth, in the presence of the three jewels [Buddha, his teachings, and his community], with one’s parents or family, with a prepubescent girl, and finally by way of mouth, of the anus, etc.” Here again, even if homosexuality as such is not mentioned, sexual relations between people of the same sex seem to be nevertheless implicitly condemned. This was the interpretation made by the current Dalai Lama, when asked about the subject during the first years of his exile.
However, the change in the Dalai Lama’s position was exemplary. After representatives of the gay community in the US declared themselves hurt by his opinion, he publicly apologized, and declared that only mutual respect and devotion should govern a couple’s relationship, be it heterosexual or homosexual. Consequently, in the United States many Buddhist communities were created based on homosexual identity, and it is not uncommon to see the term gay or lesbian associated with a Buddhist center. The gay Buddhist community in the US even has its own icons, such as Tommy (Issan) Dorsey, a one-time drag queen and junkie turned Zen master, who established a hospice in the gay quarter of San Francisco, “for all my boys,” as he often said; he died of
AIDS
in 1989. The hospice is still open today.
—
Eric Rommeluère
Robinson, B. A. “Buddhism and Homosexuality.” Religious
Tolerance.Org
.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_budd.htm
(accessed October 11, 2007).
Connor, Randy, David Hatfield, and Mariya Sparks.
Cassell’s Encyclopedia of Queer Myth, Symbol and Spirit
. New York/ London: Cassell: 1997.
Faure, Bernard.
Sexualités bouddhiques: entre désirs et réalités
. Aix-en-Provence: Le Mail, 1994.
———.
The Red Thread: Buddhist Approaches to Sexuality
. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1998.
Patrul, Rinpoche.
Le Chemin de la grande perfection
. St-Léon-sur-Vézère, France: Ed. Padmakara, 1997.
Thompson, Mark.
Gay Soul: Finding the Hearth of Gay Spirit and Nature
. San Francisco: Harper, 1995.
—China; Hinduism; India; Japan; Korea; Southeast Asia.
CAMPS.
See
Deportation; Gulag
CARICATURE
From the Latin
caricatura
, to load. “To caricature” is to exaggerate a characteristic; in the case of minorities, this characteristic can be highly discriminatory, especially when it takes on a nationalist or racist dimension (the Jewish
peril
, the yellow peril). As such, the history of caricature is often neglected, especially when the subject matter (homosexuality, in particular) remains sensitive. There is also the issue of relevance: the frame of reference has either been lost or is no longer current. In principle, caricatures should identify flaws in society and thereby aspire to correct them; in reality, however, caricatures have tended to encourage discrimination, not discourage it. The history of the portrayal of homosexuals in caricature has yet to be written. The homophobic elements are not always obvious; it depends not only on how homosexuals are represented, but also on how one perceives them to be, and whether or not such portrayals are derogatory—a drawing of an effeminate boy, for example, is not necessarily homophobic. Moreover, many homosexual men and women have no fear of being mistaken for a caricature; they embrace the role, mocking both how others perceive them as well as the stereotypical image being forced upon them.
The history of the homosexual caricature is thus also a history of its reception. The ease of identifications and interpretation of homosexual elements varies widely. They are more obvious when the caricature depicts sexual acts between men, but more difficult when there is a representation of masculine or feminine characteristics, whether in dress or in attitude. Take, for example, an “effeminate” drawing of
Henri III
adorning Pierre de L’Estoile’s
Registre-journal de Henri IV
—what was once considered effeminate and exaggerated is no longer so by today’s standards. Additionally, exaggeration of the male member was more often considered a homage to male virility, rather than the pleasure it could offer. While the image of Priapus weighing his phallus in the
Casa dei Vettii
of Pompeii clearly represents exaggeration, it is not a caricature. More ambiguous perhaps are the sexual acts between men depicted in the grotesques of Renaissance Italian villas, or the woodcarving illustration of three men from Sebastian Munster’s
Cosmographia universalis
of 1544, wherein one man is ostensibly touching the codpiece of another.
Regardless of its origins, the evolution of caricature is closely linked to that of the press, which expanded along with civil liberties during the late eighteenth century. Caricatures often accompanied hand-written pamphlets, portraying Queen Marie-Antoinette or Mademoiselle Raucourt as lesbians, for example, or the Marquis de Villette as a sodomite. But it was mostly during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries— the golden age of the industrial press—that caricature enjoyed its largest popularity. In France, six magazines in particular featured numerous illustrations of effeminate characters:
Le Canard sauvage, L’Assiette au beurre
(March 1902–October 1912),
Le Rire
(which also published as
Fantasio), La Charrette charrie,
and
Le Sourire
.