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tim
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Really getting into it |
Location: UK, West of London in Ber...
Registered: February 2002
Messages: 842
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It screams GAY GAY GAY to me. And this was in 1937.
Now I know that the 1930s were very "bohemian tolerant" and were actually very liberal. So I am hypothesising somewhat. But in the UK it was 30 years later that homosexuality was decriminalised. At that time the word "Queer" was on everyone's lips as the law was passed to make it legal for consenting adults (over 21) to do as they wished with each other in PAIRS only and in private.
After that law was passed it BECAME illegal to ask another man to GO into privacy for sex, but not to have sex. That is stil the case today, though the age of consent has been changed.
It was in 1967, in the climate of hostility towards queers that I grew up, open hostility because of the legalisation. That climate created Gay Lib and Gay Pride, rather I think that GL and GP creating the law changes. But that is not the point I was going to suggest.
Did the liberal attitude of the 1930s ALLOW Hitler's vision in Germany to take hold as a backlash? Did the war create a climate which crushed homosexual people? Did it create the excuse for experimentation on queers (we were NOT gay when I grew up, we were queers) in order to cure them?
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tim
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Really getting into it |
Location: UK, West of London in Ber...
Registered: February 2002
Messages: 842
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Sweden, a country noted for its outwardly liberal views practised eugenics until very recently. My mind says until 1983, but I would like a correction here fomr a knowledgeable perosn.
Whole segments of Swedish society had mandatory sterilisation inflicted on them by decree of the authorities. It is a major scandal that the Swedish givernment has been very successful in hushing up.
What was the alleged benefit? Who suffered? my memory says Anyone suggested to be mentally defective, which inlcudes unmarried mothers.
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That's precisely why right-wing fanaticism frightens me.
In the U.S.A., right-wing fanaticism is represented (of course) by the likes of such virulent homophobes as the "Reverends" Falwell, Robertson and Phelps, and politicians like Jesse Helms and Phil Gingrey. In their hate-filled intolerance, they demand complete fealty to their view of the world, and Lord help you if you don't toe their line!
Some of my friends tell me that I worry about these things too much, that the United States Constitution would prevent the rise to power of any radical fantatic. I'm not so sure about that. As much of a "basket case" as Germany was between the two world wars, something tells me there must have been those in Germany (and in other countries, including the U.S.A.) who harbored similar thoughts just before the Beer Hall Putsch.
The right-wing in the U.S.A. delight in taking the Constitution and bending it to their own sordid belief structure. Although not entirely germane to this thread (forgive me), here's a perfect example. There's this person I've known since he was a kid (he's 40 now) who believes the Constitution guarantees him the right to keep and bear as many arms as he wants (completely ignoring, of course, how the Constitution stipulates that this is in order to maintain a well-regulated militia). I once asked him why he feels he needs to own as many guns as he does (and he owns many). He said it was to protect his family. I then asked him what he would do if it came down to a choice between his family and his guns. He said he would choose his guns. I grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him, screaming, "Mark, you're an intelligent man! Will you stop and listen to yourself and hear how irrational that sounds!"
That's the kind of fanaticism I fear the most. And who's to say that kind of fanaticsim ended with Hitler? I hope it did; however....
We do not remember days...we remember moments.
Cesare Pavese
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