The legal system does not penalize homosexual relations, and in fact Israel is the only country in the Middle East to have laws protecting gays and lesbians from discrimination. During the last few decades, many legal proceedings have determined that same-sex partners are entitled to the same rights as heterosexual partners. The city of Tel Aviv has begun registering same-sex couples, but they are not recognized by Israel’s government, marriage being under the domain of religiously inspired laws. In 2007, Jerusalem registered its first gay couple. Certain legal battles concerning gay parents have been fought and won, including the right to
adoption
by same-sex couples.
Over the last few years, authorities in Israel have demonstrated a more favorable attitude, though there remains a void between progressive legislation and individual practice. Thus, gays and lesbians are admitted in the army, but once there, are often confronted by hostility. Similarly, the police cooperate with the gay and lesbian community, but individually, officers are sometimes very homophobic.
—Daniel Weishut
Abû-Nuwâs.
Le Vin, le vent, la vie, poèmes traduits de l’arabe et présentés par Vincent-Mansour Monteil
. Arles, France: Actes-Sud, 1998.
Al Fatiha—Foundation for LGBT muslims and their friends.
http://www.al-fatiha.net
(accessed April 23, 2008).
Amnesty International.
http://www.amnesty.org
(accessed April 23, 2008) and
http://www.ai-lgbt.org
(accessed April 23, 2008).
Archimedes.
http://www.geocities.com/westhollywood/heights/4639
(site now discontinued).
Chaline, Eric, ed.
Gay Planet: All Things For All (Gay) Men
. London: Quarto Publishing, 2000.
Dunne, Bruce. “Power and sexuality in the Middle East,”
Middle East Report
, no. 206 (Spring 1998).
Gay and Lesbian Arabic Society (GLAS).
http://www.glas.org
(accessed April 23, 2008).
Gay, Lesbian & Bisexual Nation of Cyprus (GLBCY).
http://www.geocities.com/westhollywood/village/5297
(site now discontinued).
Gay.org.il
. Home page for LGBT organizations (site now discontinued) .
Gogay. Israeli LGBT website.
http://www.gogay.co.il
(accessed April 23, 2008).
Ghoussoub, Mai, and Emma Sinclair-Webb, eds.
Imagined Masculinities: Male Identity and Culture in the Modern Middle East
. London: Saqi Books, 2000.
HOMAN. Iranian LGBT organization.
http://www.homanla.org
(accessed April 23, 2008).
Huriyah
. Magazine for Muslim LGBTs.
http://www.huriyahmag.com
(accessed April 23, 2008).
Lambda-Istanbul.
http://www.qrd.org/qrd/www/world/europe/turkey
or
www.lambdaistanbul.org
(accessed April 23, 2008).
International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC).
http://www.iglhrc.org
(accessed April 23, 2008).
International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA).
http://www.ilga.org
(accessed April 23, 2008).
McKenna, Neil. “Turkish Police Target Transvestites: A Gay Movement Grows,”
The Advocate
, no. 582 (n.d.).
Murray, Stephen O., and Will Roscoe.
Islamic Homosexualities: Culture, History and Literature
. New York: New York Univ. Press, 1997.
Schmerka, Blacher Philippe: “Tête de (gay) turc.” In
La Haine de soi, difficiles identités
. Edited by Esther Benbassa and Jean-Christophe Attias. Paris: Ed. Complexe, 2000.
Schmitt, Arno, and Jehoda Sofer, eds.
Sexuality and Eroticism Among Males in Moslem Societies
. New York: Harrington Park Press, 1992.
Shirâzi, Hâfez.
L’Amour, l’amant, l’aimé, cent ballades traduites du persan et présentées par Vincent-Mansour Monteil
. Arles, France: Actes Sud, Sinbad/Unesco, 1998.
Tapinc, Huseyin. “Masculinity, Feminity, and Turkish Male Homosexuality.” In
Modern Homosexualities: Fragments of Lesbian and Gay Experiences
. Edited by Ken Plummer. London/New York: Routledge, 1992.
Weishut, Daniel. “Attitudes Towards Homosexuality: An Overview,”
Israel Journal of Psychiatry and Related Sciences
37 no. 4 (2000).
———. “Attitudes Toward Homosexuality: A Study on Israeli Students,”
Israel Journal of Psychiatry and Related Sciences
(n.d.).
Yuzgun, Arslan. “Homosexuality and Police Terror in Turkey,”
Journal of Homosexuality
24, no. 3 (1993).
—Associations; Censorship; Heterosexism; India, Pakistan, Bangladesh; Islam; Judaism; Maghreb; Media; Orthodoxy; Police; Violence.
MILITARY.
See
Armed Forces
MINIONS.
See
Favorites
MIRGUET, Paul
Paul Mirguet (1911–2001) is best remembered as the architect of a 1960 amendment that declared homosexuality a “social scourge,” marking the apex of political homophobia in twentieth-century France.
Mirguet was a third-class parliamentarian and his career as member of parliament was extremely short (1958–62). Nothing prepared him to enter politics: he was born in 1911 to a peasant family in Moselle on the border between France and Germany; armed with only a primary education, he worked in a small refrigeration business selling meat when he was very young. World War II completely transformed his existence: Mirguet, who opposed the de facto annexation of Moselle by the Third Reich, joined the Resistance, specifically the FFI (French Forces of the Interior) in Indre; by 1944, he was head of the Resistance in Berry Creuse. He was an effective operator who was of enormous help to the Allies. At liberation, his professional interests took over again: he was, for a time, director of meat services in the Ministère du Ravitaillement (Ministry of Supplies) and in 1956–57, played an important role in a reconstruction project for La Villette’s slaughterhouses on the outskirts of Paris. (The project was a ruinous catastrophe and is now a park.) He was elected as member of parliament for the Gaullist UNR party in 1958, winning his constituency from a Christian-Democrat, Joseph Schaff; four years later, he was defeated by his predecessor and never served in office again. He died largely forgotten in May 2001.
The actions of Mirguet the politician were very limited and generally uninspired; they included defending the interests of coal workers and butchers, in which he revealed an anti-American streak and evoked a Western civilization that was at
peril
. He made his mark on July 18, 1960, however, when his motion in the National Assembly directing government to take “all measures needed to fight homosexuality” was passed, resulting in homosexuality being officially declared a “social scourge” and thus equating it on the same level as other social ills such as alcoholism and prostitution. Mirguet first introduced his amendment to the parliament in a few sentences: “I think that it is not necessary to insist at length, as you are all conscious of the seriousness of this scourge that is homosexuality, against which we have the duty to protect our children.” (One might note in passing the popular association of homosexuality with
pedophilia
during the era.) “At the moment when our civilization, dangerously in a minority when compared to the rest of the world, becomes so vulnerable, we must fight against all that can diminish its prestige; in this area as in others, France must lead by example.” (Mirguet, blamed declining birth rates on homosexuals and feared that Western civilization would be eclipsed by the surging population of the Third World in this period of decolonization.) Mirguet’s homophobic prejudices perhaps came from his upbringing (Moselle, part of Alsace-Lorraine, prohibited homosexuality as part of the German Empire from 1871 to 1918) and from his electorate (it seems likely that he sought the support of Christian-Democrats).
The vote was held at the end of a night session (it is one point in common between the Mirguet amendment and the Labouchere amendment, approved by the British Parliament in 1885, which had horrible consequences for homosexuals in Britain), and almost without debate. It is clear that the members of parliament voting on the Act were mostly concerned with the naming of alcohol as a “social scourge,” and that those who voted no or abstained did so not out of concern for the plight of homosexuals, but to protect the interests of the alcohol lobby. The next day, the newspaper
Le Monde
’s coverage of the vote included only a few lines about it, and did not mention homosexuality: “The National Assembly authorizes the government to restrain by order the privilege of grower-distillers.” It is clear that, for almost all, particularly Communists, Christian-Democrats, and Gaullists, homosexuality was, if not a “social scourge,” at least a disease against which it was acceptable to take legislative measures. As a result, no one addressed the National Assembly to either oppose the amendment or defend the rights of homosexuals. In fact, Mirguet’s proposition was essentially received with laughter in the National Assembly, a reminder that homosexuality was not a legitimate political issue in 1960 France. Moreover, wanting to return some measure of dignity to the debate, Member of Parliament Marcelle Devaud (UNR), who was also the president of the Commission on Social Affairs, had the following reaction: “I do not find it particularly funny…. Be assured that I am not at all embarrassed to speak about these things as they exist. It is natural to speak of them in order to fight them.”
The infamous Act was signed into law on July 30 by President Charles de Gaulle and cabinet ministers Roger Frey, Edmond Michelet, Pierre Chatenet, Wilfrid Baumgartner, and Bernard Chenot.
Le Monde
made no comment;
Paris-Presse
published Mirguet’s photo with a heroically-styled caption that included the fact that “he is the first to request measures against homosexuality.” Only the gay association Arcadie protested the amendment in a letter to Mirguet. In response, Mirguet stressed his worries as the head of a family (he was married and had two children) and pretended that he had not asked the government to issue repressive measures but rather medical ones. Nevertheless, a few months later, penalties in cases of “
outrage public à la pudeur
” (a crime that first appeared in the French penal code in 1810, regarding instances of “causing a public scandal by gestures or obscene exhibitions”) of a homosexual nature were increased. The law had broad ramifications, and the gay community in Paris, still in its infancy, was severely affected by the change; the club associated with Arcadie had to end its Sunday afternoon tea dances and the magazine suspended its classified ads.
As the years passed, Mirguet was, without a doubt, less and less proud of his amendment. Isolated and ineffective, in January 1975, he nevertheless took part, in a televised debate on homosexuality on the program
Dossiers de l’ecran
. Times had changed. Gay author and journalist Jean-Louis Bory ate him alive, and even the priests and doctors on the panel were against him. Finally, in a fitting irony, in 1972 a contemporary gay periodical named itself in reference to Mirguet’s passion:
Le Fleau social
(The social scourge).
—Pierre Albertini
Mirguet, Paul.
Viandes et réalités économiques et politiques
. Paris: Brunétoile, 1957.
———.
Programme de réformes et d’action politique pour une France libre et sociale
. Metz, France: Reinert, 1973.
—Abnormal; Criminalization; France; Heterosexism; Politics.
MONSIEUR
It was no secret at the court of Versailles that Philippe d’Orléans (1640–1701)—known as Monsieur, brother to Louis XIV—was obsessed since childhood by a fantasy of cross-dressing. He adored ribbons, lace, and jewelry, and would have willingly worn a dress if it had not been prevented by his rank. The influence exerted on him by his lover, the Knight of Lorraine, did not contradict the other traits of his character, which included a rather gaudy piety, an obsession with precedence and etiquette, and an unapologetic frankness, which allowed him to tell his second wife that he was comparable to
Henri III
(who was regarded as homosexual) “in every respect.”
Monsieur suffered from comparison with his wives. The first, Henrietta Anne Stuart of England, was well known for her beauty and charm, but died at the age of twenty-six in 1670, which was thought to be due to poison, blamed, without proof, on her husband’s
favorite
, Phillip of Lorraine. After having been eclipsed in popularity by his first wife, Monsieur was subsequently crushed by his second, the thunderous Elizabeth Charlotte, also known as Princess Palatine, who married Monsieur against her will in order to further the ambitions of her father, Charles I Louis of Hanover. She swayed between affection, repugnance, and commiseration toward her husband, whose conjugal duties resulted in three children; in turn, he, after failing to transform her into a subservient court doll, treated her with a respectful indifference. As talk of his indiscretions with favorites increased, Monsieur’s star within the French court rapidly began to fade: “Monsieur is debauched, and his only interest is … in recommending his favorites and obtaining from His Majesty all sorts of good treatments and favors for them. As for his children, he doesn’t think of them” (1686). In the end, with all things considered, his biggest failure was to allow himself to be persuaded by his favorites at the expense of his family; in other words, he began to correspond too closely to the archetype of the effeminate, becoming a futile and easily influenced man, and as such someone “more to pity than to hate.” At the same time, Elizabeth Charlotte became enamored with his elder brother, Louis XIV, who delighted his sister-in-law, who, according to one of her friends, had “never been married” in the true sense, given Monsieur’s predilections.
The fate of Monsieur lay in an unavoidable confrontation with Louis XIV. In Louis’s eyes, haunted by the precedent of his uncle Gaston d’Orléans (eternal challenger to the crown of his brother, Louis XIII), it was imperative for him to politically neutralize his troublesome
puisne
(“inferior”). To keep him at a disadvantage, Louis encouraged his brother in his “peculiar” inclination, which prevented him from having any power or influence in the court. On at least two occasions, however, this position was tested. In 1656, the court expressed its concern when an illness nearly took Monsieur’s life, much to the consternation of the king. Then in 1677, Monsieur enjoyed military success in the war with Holland. If the glory he attained there did not cause him to lose his brother’s affection outright, it at least awoke the king’s mistrust: as a result, Monsieur was never again allowed to participate in a military campaign. By the end of the seventeenth century, evidence of Monsieur’s behavior came to affect the reputation of his son, the Duke of Chartres, and the future Regent. The atavistic
perversion
attributed to the Orléans would end up feeding the antagonism fated to last among the elder and the younger branches of the royal family.
—Laurent Avezou