The Dictionary of Homophobia (5 page)

Read The Dictionary of Homophobia Online

Authors: Louis-Georges Tin

Tags: #SOC012000

—Code of the Qing Dynasty (Da Qing Mi), 1734

The pederast contravenes to hygiene, to cleanliness and he is ignorant of the lustration that purifies. The state of the backside, the weakness of the sphincter, the funnel-shaped anus or the shape and dimension of the penis show the membership in this new race. Monster in the new gallery of monsters, the pederast is in part linked to the animal; in his coitus, he invokes the dog. His nature associates him to excrement.

—Ambroise Tardieu,
Etude médico-légales sur les attentats aux moeurs
(Medical-legal studies of assaults against decency), 1857

Without going all the way to death, I regret that this infamy that has begun to propagate itself amongst us, be treated with so much indulgence. I would like it to be, in all cases, associated to rape, and punished by twenty years of reclusion.

—Pierre-Joseph Proudhon,
Amour et marriage
(Love and marriage), 1858

Homosexuality is a functional stigmatism of
degeneracy
and a nervous psychopathological defect.

—Richard von Krafft-Ebing,
Psychopathia Sexualis
, 1886

Homosexuality is the negation of human will in one of its weakest points, for human will has in it the living ideal of perpetuation. This simple fact suffices to impose heterosexuality as the standard and to place all perversions, including masturbation, at the level of crime, aberrations or sin.

—Dr Alfred Adler, “Le Problème de l’homosexualité” (published in English as “On Homosexuality,” 1917)

Imagine exactly what sexual practices between men are, and try not to vomit.

—Camille Mauclair,
Les Marges
, March 1926

I believe that this perversion of natural instinct, like many other perversions, is an indicator of the profound social and moral
decadence
of a certain part of current society.

—Henri Barbusse,
Les Marges
, March 1926

Homosexuality foils all productivity.… We must understand that if this vice continues to spread throughout Germany without our being able to fight it, it will be the end of
Germany
, the end of the Germanic world.

—Heinrich Himmler, speech of February 18, 1937

In Soviet society, homosexuality is repressed as a sexual depravation and punished by law, with the exception of mental disorders…. In the bourgeois countries, homosexuality, sign of the moral decomposition of the ruling classes, is an impossible fact to punish.

—“Homosexuality,” in the
Great Soviet Encyclopedia
, vol. 12, 1952

In thirty-eight years, the school has produced no homosexuals. The reason is that freedom results in healthy children.

—Dr Alexander-Sutherland Neill,
Libres enfants de Summerhill
(
Summerhill: A Radical Approach to Child Rearing
), 1960

Don’t come and tell us, under the pretense that it is an accepted—celebrated even—perversion, that it is not a perversion. Homosexuality remains what it is: a perversion.

—Jacques Lacan, “Le Transfert,” in
Séminaire
(
Seminar of Jacques Lacan
), vol. 8, 1960–6

The pure homosexual, unscathed of all neurotic potentiality, seems to me an exception; we do not see any in our offices.

—Dr Marcel Eck, “Sodome,” 1966

Homosexuality remains the dead-end of non-fraternity and of non-life.

—Dr Eliane Amado Lévy-Valensi,
Le Grand désarroi
, 1973

I respect homosexuals just as I respect the infirm. But if they wish to transform their infirmity into health, I must say that I do not agree.

—Monsignor Elchinger, bishop of Strasbourg, 1982

It is necessary to sanction homosexual
proselytism
. In fact, the greatest danger that threatens the world is the decrease in the birthrate in the West and the increase in the birthrate in the Third World. For this reason, I consider that it will lead, if it continues, to the end of the World.

—Jean-Marie Le Pen, president of the National Front Party of France, 1984

Unless we get medically lucky, in three or four years, one of the options discussed will be the extermination of homosexuals.

—Dr Paul Cameron, Conservative Political Action Conference, 1985

Heterosexuality is best.

—Edith Cresson, French prime minister, 1991

This virus [HIV] has had the genius to attack those who have transformed the physiology of reproduction into adulterated pleasure.… In these times when everything that is immoral, even unnatural, is admired, this virus knew where to strike.

—P. German, president of France’s Académie nationale de pharmacie, 1991

There are areas in which it is not unjust discrimination to take sexual orientation into account, for example, in the placement of children for adoption or foster care, in employment of teachers or athletic coaches, and in military recruitment.

—Cardinal Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI, “Some Considerations Concerning the Response to Legislative Proposals on Non-Discrimination of Homosexual Persons,” 1992

Homosexuals are worse than pigs and dogs.

—Robert Mugabe, president of Zimbabwe, 1995

For those who have the responsibility to speak of and name regulations or the establishment of norms in a context of education, teaching, and support, it seems to me to be intellectually and morally honest to dare to insist on the non equivalence between homosexual and heterosexual forms of affection. Differently from other qualifications evoked above, expressions such as ‘abnormal form of sexuality’ or ‘objectively deficient conducts’ do not seem to me to be either insulting or humiliating. Who does not have deficiencies in certain aspects of their character, in their sexuality in particular? Sexuality is not only the area of our capacities and performances, it is also that of our vulnerabilities and weaknesses.

—Xavier Lacroix,
L’Amour du semblable, questions sur l’homosexualité
(Love of the same: questions on homosexuality), 1995

I admit that there must be some homosexuals in the National Front, but there are no queens. They are invited to go elsewhere.

—Jean-Marie Le Pen, National Front Party, 1995

Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.’ They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

—“The Vocation to Chastity: Chastity and Homosexuality,”
Catechism of the Catholic Church
, 2357–59, 1997

Some people are going to scream, but I am willing to say that you cannot be gay and happy.

—Sébastien,
Ne deviens pas gay tu finiras triste
, 1998

For homosexuals, Islam has prescribed the most severe punishments. After guilt has been established according to the dictates of
sharia
, the individual must be seized, be kept standing, and divided in two with a sword and either cut off his head, or split him completely in two. He (or she) will fall.… After his death, a pyre must be made, the body placed on it, fire set to it and burn it, or brought to the top of a mountain and thrown from a cliff. Then, the body parts must be assembled and burned. Or a hole must be dug, a fire started in it and he must be thrown in alive. We have no such punishments for other crimes.

—Ayatollah Musava Ardelsili, Tehran, 1998

Homosexuality is part of the first stages of human sexuality; it does not represent the final stage of sexuality, which, in the best of cases, progresses towards heterosexuality. Homosexuality is in no way a choice of one object among others, but a complex which indicates the failure of the internalization of the other.

—Tony Anatrella, priest and psychoanalyst,
Le Monde
, October 10, 1998

If you ask me if an avowed homosexual teacher can teach, my answer is no. It would be morally wrong that an avowed homosexual person or someone who, when all is said and done, considers pedophilia to be a form of love be allowed to teach. They should be excluded from public service.

—Gianfranco Fini, leader of Italy’s National Alliance political movement, 1998

I cannot be favorable to those that I call the gravediggers of humanity, those who do not guarantee the future, homosexuals.

—François Abadie, senator, France’s Radical Left Party,
Nouvel observateur
, June 2000

It is not good that a man goes with another man, or that a woman goes with another woman. It goes against African tradition and the teachings of the Bible.

—Daniel arap Moi, president of Kenya, 2000

My words are like a dagger with a jagged edge / That’ll stab you in the head / Whether you’re a fag or a lez / Or the homosex, hermaph, or a trans-a-vest / Pants or dress—hate fags? The answer’s yes.

—Eminem, “Criminal,”
The Marshall Mathers LP
, 2000

Lesbians use the orifice of life in their lovemaking. However, homosexuals use the orifice of excrement.

—Didier Ratsiraka, president of Madagascar,
La Tribune de Madagascar
, March 27, 2001

The youth must fight against the temptation of violence, immorality, sins against nature, alcoholism and the hell of drugs. The fact that evil risks invading our world and that the abnormal tends to be considered normal must worry us all.

—Monsignor Teoctist, patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church, 2001

On the battle in France over
PaCS
(the legislative proposal to legalize civil unions, including between same-sex couples):

The reason for which homosexual couples do not have access to marriage is that it is the institution that etches gender differences into the
symbolic order
, by linking couple and descent.

—Irène Théry,
Notes de la Fondation Saint-Simon and Esprit
, October 1997

Where will we set the boundary, for an adopted child, between homosexuality and pedophilia?

—Christine
Boutin
, Union for French Democracy member of parliament, member of the Pontifical Council for the Family,
Le “Mariage” des homosexuels?
(“Marriage” between homosexuals?), 1998.

It is the foundations of civilization and democracy that would be put into question.

—Boutin
, Le “Mariage,”
1998.

Homosexuals, I piss in their asses.

—Michel Meylan, France’s Liberal Democracy Party member of parliament, 1998

It is homosexuality and every perversion that invades
literature
,
cinema
,
theater
, and the
media
, and which assails the very young who have no appropriate defenses.

—Avenir de la culture (Future of the Culture) handout, 1998

Unsuitable to ensure the renewal of the members that make it up [society], homosexuality is, by nature, a behavior that is deadly to society. This is not a moral or subjective appreciation, but an elementary biological statement of fact.

—Judge Jean-Luc Auber, note in the decision of the Court of Cassation, 1998

Every sociological study has proven that, in general, homosexual couples have higher incomes than heterosexual couples, and for obvious reasons. It is thus unreasonable to offer to everyone the same advantages when the justifications for such advantages are lacking.

—Bernard Beignier, columnist, 1997

To accept that couples can be constituted otherwise than in the conjugal relation of a man and a woman is to go against the natural balance established by God. Under the guise of democracy, our society tends to legislate according to the evolution of mores…. When man assaults nature, he assaults God and himself.

—Joseph Sitruk, chief rabbi of France, 1996

Sterilize them!

—Pierre Lellouche, Rally for the Republic member of parliament, 1998

To entrust children to male homosexual couples (as will happen one day or another by logical evolution if PaCS is adopted) will only increase the risks of pedophilia, which are already constantly growing.

—Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie,
Le Figaro
, October 19, 1998

This project arouses a deep repulsion, including amongst socialist voters. It is legislation of decadent times, worse than that at the end of the Roman Empire.

—Jean Foyer, French secretary of state, 1998

The PaCS revolution is a return to barbarism.

—Philippe de Villiers, member of the European parliament, 1998)

No nephews for the aunties; The homosexuals of today are the pedophiles of tomorrow; Fags to the pyre!

—Slogans from an anti-PaCS demonstration, January 31, 1999

TABLE OF ENTRIES

Abnormal
(Catherine Deschamps)

Adoption
(Daniel Borrillo and Thomas Formond)

Africa
.
See
Africa, Central & Eastern; Africa, Southern; Africa, Western

Africa, Central & Eastern
(Pierre Albertini)

Africa, Southern
(Pierre Albertini)

Africa, Western
(Séverin Cécile Abega)