Around the mid-90s, national petitions were launched requesting the legal recognition of same-sex couples. In 1998, an initiative by Swiss Liberal Party member Jean-Michel Gros from Geneva advocated the adoption of registered partnerships on the national scale. At the same time, the latest Swiss Federal Constitution, which took effect January 1, 2000, forbids all
discrimination
based on lifestyle, without specifically mentioning homosexuality or homophobia. In 2001, the Canton of Geneva adopted a partnership law, a mostly symbolic recognition as it was limited to cantonal law. On June 5, 2005, a government-proposed partnership law was approved by referendum by the Swiss; the Eingetragene Partnerschaft, which literally means “registered partnership,” allows same-sex couples many of the same basic rights as those held by married heterosexuals. The partnership law took effect in early 2007.
Following the lead of Zurich, which for many years celebrated its own Christopher Street Day, in 1997 numerous cities in French-speaking Switzerland began holding their own Lesbian and Gay Pride marches, uniting tens of thousands of participants and spectators. Then, a world first occurred in June 2001, when Swiss President Moritz Leuenberger spoke before thousands of people during Zurich’s Christopher Street Day, the first time a head of state had ever participated in a Pride event. At the same time, a scandal erupted that sent waves of indignation throughout the country: the publication of a violently homophobic full-page article in a regional newspaper by a minuscule,
far right
religious group following the announcement of a Gay Pride parade in the very Catholic canton of Valais. The parade ended up being a great success, receiving widespread media coverage, and resulted in the near-total banishment of the religious homophobes. This event is indicative of the point of view of a majority of the Swiss population when it comes to same-sex love in the twenty-first century: even though there remain some hard-core bastions of homophobia, which are difficult to rehabilitate given centuries of
heterosexist
conditioning, Switzerland has generally demonstrated a progressive acceptance of the gay, lesbian, and bisexual realities.
—Stéphane Riethauser
Baier, Lionel.
La Parade (Notre Histoire)
. Film documentary about the Sion Gay Pride of 2001, in the Canton of Valais. Lausanne: Cinémanufacture, 2001.
Hogan, Steve, and Lee Hudson.
Completely Queer: The Gay and Lesbian Encyclopedia
. New York: Henry Holt, 1998.
Hössli, Heinrich.
Eros, Die Männerliebe der Griechen
. Vol 1. Glarus, Switzerland: 1836; Vol. 2. St Gallen, Switzerland: 1838. Reprint, Berlin: Bilbliothek Rosa Winkel, 1996.
Manfred, Herzer, ed.
Goodbye to Berlin? 100 Jahre Schwulenbewegung
. Exhibition catalog. Berlin: Rosa Winkel, 1997.
Monter, William. “Sodomy and Heresy in Early Modern Switzerland,”
Journal of Homosexuality
6, nos. 1–2 (Fall/ Winter, 1980–81).
Puff, Helmutt.
Sodomy in Reformation Germany and Switzerland, 1400–1600
. Chicago: Chicago Series on Sexuality and Society, 2003.
Schüle, Hannes.
Homosexualität im Schweizer Strafrecht
. Bern: 1984.
Riethauser, Stéphane.
A visage découvert, des jeunes Suisses romands parlent de leur homosexualité
. Geneva: Ed. Slatkine, 2000.
—Associations; Discrimination; Germany; Heterosexism; Protestantism.
SYMBOLIC ORDER
Symbolic order, as defined by Jacques Lacan but originated by Claude Lévi-Strauss in 1949 (translated as “Elementary Structures of Kinship”), is essentially the order of signs, representations, significations, and images whereby an individual is formed as a subject. It is one of three orders that constitute the subject in Lacanian psychoanalysis, the other two being the Imaginary and the Real. The symbolic is made possible through acceptance of the laws and restrictions that control both one’s desire and communication; it is through the symbolic that one can enter a community of others.
The term “symbolic order” was used in
France
by opponents of two issues that were passed into law: gender parity in French politics (resulting in the Parity Law of 2000) and civil unions between couples, whether gay or straight (
PaCS
[Pacte civil de solidarité; or the Civil solidarity pact], passed into law in 1999). While one could have expected that supporters of these laws might use the occasion to denounce the sexist and homophobic patriarchy, there was none. All the same, “symbolic order” was evoked as a type of magic formula by opponents of one or the other of the two laws, articulating the associations of gender and homosexuality with representations of the
family, parenting
, and their connections to power.
What then is this “symbolic order,” which seemed to be the formula that would block all discussion, for the unique reason that the juxtaposition of the two words was used by representatives of social sciences who set themselves up as absolute experts? In any case, let’s postulate that this “order” by no means stops all thought, but rather designates injunctions that are cultural and thus relative, susceptible of being deconstructed, anchored in a location and in historicity.
But in France during debates on these issues, it was essentially three people—sociologist Irène Théry, philosopher Sylviane Agacinsky, and in the background, lawyer and psychoanalyst Pierre Legendre—who, through the
media
and their own publications, defined a limit that should not to be overtaken, beyond which society would not be able to legislate. For them, this limit refers back to the symbolic order, which boils down to the idea of inevitable and vital
gender difference
, the basis of a well-functioning society. For the sociologist, the philosopher, and the lawyer-psychoanalyst, it is a matter of not promoting any law susceptible of adversely affecting this gender difference conceived as an absolute. This accord did not, however, lead them to identical positions: Théry opposed the PaCS proposal while Agacinsky supported it. On the other hand, worried about the possible future impact of PaCS and in advance of any new proposition, these three came together on the issue of gay parenting to brandish the specter of symbolic order.
In effect, if the general motivation behind PaCS was to legally confirm the existence of couples (whether straight or gay) resistant to
marriage
, it was not supposed to create anything other than a couple, and, specifically, that for homosexual women and men. Yet alongside which structures is the couple considered a pillar, at least in Western societies? Family, children, and the succession of generations. In waving the flag of symbolic order—that is, an irreducible and necessary difference between the sexes—intellectuals who were using the formula could at least admit that same-sex couples could have the benefits of a contract to warrant their union; they could not, however accept that these couples might be acceptable parents: in their view, children must necessarily be the biological, artificial, or social products of a man and a woman. Thus, if lesbians and gay men have the right to a family, it must be composed solely of their ascendants; i.e. their own parents, etc. To simplify, where symbolic order dictates the rules, gay and lesbian couples would be subject to both biological and cultural sterilization. At a time when it is clear that the health, education, and well-being of children is in no way guaranteed by having two biological, heterosexual parents, and where heterosexual intercourse is no longer the only means of procreation (e.g., in vitro fertilization), it is amazing to realize that certain technological and social amenities remain accessible to some and not to others.
How could those who argued for the acknowledgment of single mothers—those raising their children without the presence of a man, without this apparently essential plurality of genders—then refuse the right for same-sex couples to have children? The majority of parents throughout history may indeed be heterosexual, but this is beside the point: the law not only takes into consideration historical precedent; it also aims (depending on the country) to respect the rights of minorities, and/or to permit equality of people among themselves. Further, it is not a question of the inability to rein in this change (which is often suggested by arguments presented in terms of factual versus potential situations). Because then the argument of symbolic order will return not to forbid it, but to establish hierarchies among accepted familial concepts: e.g., good couples, good parents, bad couples, bad parents, all of them legal; but ultimately, in order to distinguish the best, one can always look to the so-called irreducible difference between sexes without gender.
So the problem with symbolic order is what it suggests should be the limit, and the way those who used this terminology in the past instrumentalized it: the expression is noble-sounding and sounds serious, and those who used it did not hesitate to mention their prestigious positions and university titles, even though their arguments were no longer the product of a scientific approach. Thus, symbolic order is nothing more than a misuse of authority, a construction; an empty threat of the intellectual elite to silence those who do not hide behind chaste expertise but simply offer their opinion as citizens. This is not a case where one must accuse those who think that family cannot be conceived in any way other than the heterosexual, child-bearing couple: they have the right to believe it, so long as they do not use it as an authoritarian argument trimmed with the decorations of science, and if they do not abusively use the texts of Lévi-Strauss to impose what is, basically, a personal opinion.
We will not return to the numerous examples which, depending on the era and place, damage the idea that not only there would be everywhere and always a difference between the sexes, but moreover that this difference would be the only impassable difference. Developed by philosopher Geneviève Fraisse and historian Michèle Perrot, among others, these examples have often been popularized. We have to note that symbolic order, a popular phrase in recent years, collapses if we are vigilant in observing the subjectivity of the speaker’s position, the strategies that he or she uses, and the ideologies defended. The focus on gay parenting has been a way to avoid asking general questions on parenting and the family, regardless of who they address. It has been a way to pass onto others questions which can likely be asked of all and, thus, likely hurt the heterosexual parenting model. The method is common: to avoid pointing fingers at many, nothing works like focusing attention on only a few.
—Catherine Deschamps
Borrillo, Daniel, Eric Fassin, and Marcela Iacub, eds.
Au-delà du PaCS. L’expertise familiale à l’épreuve de l’homosexualité
. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1999.
Delor, François.
Homosexualité, ordre symbolique, injure et discrimination: Impasses et destins des expériences érotiques minoritaires dans l’espace social et politique
. Brussels: Labor, 2003.
Favret-Saada, Jeanne. “La-Pensée-Levi-Strauss,”
Journal des Anthropologues: Anthropologie des sexualités
, nos. 82–83. (2000).
Fraisse, Geneviève. “La Parité n’est pas l’égalité sociale,”
Libération
(December 29, 1998).
Perrot, Michèle. “Oui, tenter cette expérience nouvelle,”
Le Monde
(February 25, 1999).
—Adoption; Anthropology; Discrimination; Family; Gender Differences; Heterosexism; Marriage; Otherness; Parenting; Philosophy; Psychoanalysis; Rhetoric; Sociology; Sterility; Universalism/Differentialism.
THEODOSIUS I
The law of 390 CE decreed under Theodosius I that established burning as the most appropriate punishment for homosexual acts has been the subject of many debates. There is the question of whether Theodosius’s true intentions were to target passive homosexuality in general, or male prostitution in particular. Theodosius was not the first Christian emperor to outlaw homosexuality; forty-eight years prior, in December 342 CE, Constantine I, the Emperor of the Western Roman Empire, decreed a similar law condemning passive homosexuality.
Theodosius was a devout Christian emperor, convinced that victory, especially during a battle against a conspirator, was dependent upon divine favor. In accordance with this belief, the respect of Christian morality represented for Theodosius an important politico-religious issue. Thus, his legislation was both part of a political trend to criminalize homosexuality in the Roman Empire of late Antiquity and a response to his own politico-religious preoccupations. However, beyond these political and personal agendas, Theodosius’s law of 390 CE finds its roots in the arrest of a certain homosexual, an arrest which would infamously mark Theodosius’s reign. This story is told, particularly, by Byzantine Church historians, such as Sozomen, who wrote in the fifth century.
In 390 CE, a famous charioteer was arrested and imprisoned for engaging in a homosexual act by Butheric, a Goth commander of Illyrian troupes in Thessalonica. At the time, chariot races at the hippodrome were a great passion for citizens of the Roman Empire, particularly in Rome and Constantinople. The victorious charioteers were true celebrities, their names, acclamations, and their victories immortalized in honorary statues and engraved epigrams. Thus, given that prestigious races were soon to be held at the hippodrome in Thessalonica, Thessalonicans demanded that Porphyruis be released, demonstrating that, at the time, they did not consider a charioteer’s homosexuality a serious enough motive to forbid a charioteer from participating in competition, and subsequently lowering the level of a sport that constituted one of the most popular attractions in the Roman Empire. When authorities refused, an insurrection ensued during which Butheric was killed. News of the incident angered Theodosius, who responded by subjecting the city to violent repression, resulting in the massacre of thousands. The Bishop Ambrose of Milan forbade Theodosius to enter the church and ordered him to perform penance.
This incident marked a turning point in the history of homosexuality, announcing a new era in which homosexuality would enter an epoch of shame and
criminalization
. However, it was not until the reign of Justinian I, in the sixth century, that a veritable state homophobia took place.
—Georges Sidéris