Ryan, Bill and Jean-Yves Frappier. “Quand l’autre en soi grandit: les difficultés à vivre l’homosexualité à l’adolescence.” In
La Peur de l’autre en soi. Du sexisme à l’homophobie
. Edited by Michel Dorais, Pierre Dutey, Daniel Welzer-Lang. Montreal: VLB, 1994.
Tort, Michel. “Homophobies psychanalytiques,”
Le Monde
(October 15, 1999).
Weston, Kath.
Families Who Choose: Lesbians, Gays, and Kinship
. New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1991.
—Adoption; Anthropology; Decadence; European Law; Gender Differences; Heterosexism; Jurisprudence; Marriage; Otherness; Parenting; Psychoanalysis; Rhetoric; Shame; Sterility; Suicide.
FAR RIGHT, the
The formation of what can be referred to as right-wing politics was based on the reaction of the traditional elite to the French Revolution, more specifically to those ideas that the Revolution embodied (that is, the philosophical theories of the Enlightenment). Since its inception, the right has tended to reject the new, progressive principles of equality between men (over and above differences of class and race), democratic politics (which can be limited, in practice), religious
tolerance
, the secular role of the state, and the universal right to education, among other things. Throughout the nineteenth century, the right as a whole seemed to turn and began to integrate these principles, although some steadfastly refused to compromise over these progressive ideas. It was in this way that around the beginning of the twentieth century, a new faction began to take shape: the far (or extreme) right. More combustive and less elitist than what is usually understood as the right, the far right seeks to secure the support of the masses for its reactionary agenda.
As French political professor Ariane Chebel d’Apol-lonia, who has authored books on the far right, explains it, “the mentality of the far right is based on the affirmation of specific values. Despite the heterogeneity of its ideas, certain common themes can be identified.” These values include a strong and authoritarian government, the rejection of liberal individualism and capitalism, anti-intellectualism, new spirituality (whether it is based on fundamentalist
Christianity
or even neo-paganism), nationalism, militarism, anti-feminism (and the belief that the “natural” function of women is procreation), racism, xenophobia, and anti-Semitism. While
Fascism
—as demonstrated by the Italian Fascist party and the German Nazi party between the years 1920 and 1940—is probably the most well-known example, since the beginning of the twentieth century and right up to the present day, political parties can be found in all parts of the world which embrace these core ideas that can be seen as characteristic of the far right.
Even if homosexuality had never been one of its main concerns, the far right has nevertheless consistently shown itself to be strongly homophobic. Desiring to defend the patriarchal order and obsessed with moral
decadence
, the far right is deeply conservative with regard to any issue related to mores and sexuality. This explains its fierce opposition not only to abortion (which it likens to the murder of innocent children and associates with the trend toward birthrate decreases in Western nations) and pornography (which it claims corrupts youth), but also sexual freedom in all its forms. Considered by the far right to be decadent and
against nature
, homosexuality according to this view is far more than a simple individual
vice
or personal defect; it threatens to bring entire nations to ruin by sapping the virility out of citizens.
Nonetheless, there is a certain ambiguity in the relationship between homosexuality and the far right. This was well-illustrated by the Fascists of the 1920s to 1940s, whose cult of virility, strength, and youth (plus, one might even say, a generalized ambience of homosociality and homoeroticism) was a source of fascination and attraction for certain homosexuals, although they never made up much more than a small minority among partisans of the far right. Ernst Röhm, friend and right arm of Adolf Hitler before the Führer ordered his assassination in 1934, is one of the most famous examples of extreme right-wing homosexuals, but he is far from the only one. In France, a handful of them, such as Abel Bonnard (Minister of Education from 1942 to 1944), nicknamed “Gaystapo” (“
Gestapette
”) by Marshal
Pétain
, served the Vichy government and collaborated actively with the German occupiers. These sentiments were also shared by a few lesbians who lived in Paris, for example, the American Natalie Barney, who was an anti-Semite, detested the common masses, and declared that the Fascists and the Nazis had “a superior cause” to that of the Allies. It is noteworthy that the left was often as homophobic as the right during this era, and did not hesitate to accuse the Fascists of a predilection for homosexuality. There are more recent examples of homosexuals among the far right: the magazine
Gaie France
, published by Michel Caignet starting in 1986, was both fascistic and openly gay; and the heretofore hidden homosexuality of certain neo-Nazi leaders was uncovered by the press in both Great Britain (Martin Webster) and Germany (Michael Kühnen and Bernd E. Althans). Also worthy of mention is Pim Fortuyn, an openly homosexual Dutch political leader, who was assassinated on May 6, 2002. He was often portrayed outside of the Netherlands as being a member of the far right, even though his ideas were most often closer to those of populist or republican parties.
Given these numerous examples, it is clear that the link between homosexuality and Fascism has been regularly referenced throughout the twentieth century, leading homosexual writer and anti-Fascist Klaus Mann to observe in 1934: “Homosexuality and Fascism are very close to being considered the same thing…. Homosexuals are being made out to be the Jews of the anti-Fascists. It’s abominable.” In addition, Luchino Visconti’s 1969 film
The Damned
portrayed the Nazis as a band of homosexuals, decadent, degenerate, and effete. More recently, a sensationalistic 2001 book by German historian Lothar Machtan,
Hitler’s Geheimnis
(published in English as
The Hidden Hitler
) claimed to have proof of Hitler’s homosexuality, an issue that was already an old chestnut of Nazi historiography: as early as the 1930s, Hitler was sometimes portrayed as a “hopeless queer” in
caricatures
. Independent of their truthfulness (which has never been established), these kinds of allegations were often created by Fascism’s opponents to draw connections between the far right and homosexuality, despite the fact that the vast majority of far right militants and leaders are proudly heterosexual and resolutely homophobic.
Right-wing homophobia appeared in Europe during the eighteenth century, when partisans of the established order accused certain philosophers of being sodomites, and dubbed sodomy as the “philosophical
sin
.” They used the same argument against many well-known revolutionaries during the 1790s (no doubt for controversial ends, and without really believing it), including the prudish Maximilien Robespierre. In return, the philosophers and revolutionaries made the same accusations against their opponents, denouncing the clergy and the aristocracy as effeminates and pederasts. Soon after it became entrenched as a political force, the far right took up this tradition. For example, in the 1890s during the French political scandal known as the Dreyfus Affair, the nationalistic and anti-Semitic far right depicted the Dreyfusards (supporters of Dreyfus) as intellectuals and esthetes lacking in virility, and taunted Colonel George Picquart, who also defended Dreyfus, by calling him “Georgette” and caricaturing him as a coward and a queer.
During the 1930s, the Nazis instituted a homophobic policy in Germany, and 10,000 to 15,000 homosexuals perished during the
deportations
and in concentration camps. To the Nazis, homosexuality was a sign of a lack of virility (a characteristic essential to a warrior society) and moral decadence, equal in offense to racial corruption (i.e. the Jews). Thus, according to the official Nazi party line,
It is necessary that the German people live. This can never come about unless its virility is maintained. And it cannot maintain its virility without proving its discipline … and deviance conflicts with discipline. Consequently, we must reject all forms of lechery, homosexuality in particular, because it robs us of our last chance to free our people from the oppression under which we struggle today.
As well, “Sexual relations with animals, with one’s brothers or sisters, with people of the same sex: all these aberrations which were born of the Jewish soul and offend the very idea of divine creation, will find the chastisement they so deserve: the rope or expulsion.”
Victory over the Nazis in 1945 did not destroy the far right nor did it discredit its homophobic ideals. Today, the same mix of homophobia, xenophobia, and intolerance can be found in many contemporary “thinkers.” For example, in a 2000 book by Guillaume Faye, one of the major theorists of the French New Right,
La Colonisation de l’Europe, discours vrai sur l’immigration et l’
Islam
(
The Colonization of Europe: The Truth about Immigration and Islam
), he complains about the “demasculinization” of the Western world, because “the virility of a people is the condition by which they keep their place in history.” According to the author, some of the traits of this demasculinization are “modern homophilia, like the wave of feminism … the numerous ideological rejections of the
family
… decreases in the birth rate, the spectacular valorization of Blacks and Arabs, the constant defense of cross-breeds, [and] the refusal to recognize the worth of the warrior.” Faye and his editor were both convicted by a Paris court for inciting racial hatred—though, of course, not for inciting homophobia.
Jean-Marie Le Pen, the controversial leader of France’s far right party, the National Front, has often spoken out against homosexuals in rude and offensive ways. In 1987, he described people with
AIDS
as akin to “a kind of leper”; in 1984, he stated that “homosexuality is not a crime, but … a biological and social anomaly.” To this, he added: “Homosexual activism poses a mortal peril to our civilization” through social disintegration and the decreases in birth rates in the Western world; based on this, he concluded that “homosexual
proselytism
must be outlawed.” Since then, he modified his extreme stance somewhat; in 1995, he stated that it was likely there were homosexuals in his party (which he tempered by further saying, “[But] there are no queers”), and that “homosexuality is part of everyone’s individual freedom; it’s only militant homosexuality that is reprehensible.” These statements notwithstanding, his homophobia, and that of his party, leaves little doubt. As for Bruno Mégret, Le Pen’s former lieutenant and now leader of his own far-right party, the Mouvement National Républicain (National Republican Movement), he has spoken out against the
media
in terms that could not be more racist and homophobic, especially in his essay “Pour remettre de l’ordre en France” (To Return order to France). According to him,
The only thing worthy in [the media’s] eyes is that which is deviant, marginal, and subversive. In order to be seen and applauded … you had better not be French and especially not right-wing. It is better to not be a father and the head of a family, and not express your religious faith, unless it is Islam or
Buddhism
. If you’re a militant homosexual, even better; if you’re doping up and everyone knows it, it’s an asset. And moreover, if you’re Arab or Black, that’s perfect! The only thing left is to start vilifying all that is moral, traditional, familial, and national.
This type of opinion, of course, is not limited to the French far right. In 1997, a campaign manifesto issued by the far right British National Party stated: “We promise … laws prohibiting homosexual acts so that these revolting practices can be pushed back into the
closet
where they belong.” In Italy, the Lega Nord (Northern League) declared that “society is crumbling little by little and has permitted the development of the pathological behaviors of homosexuality, juvenile delinquency, and drugs,” while a far-right politician stated that “gay meeting places should be shut down, the same way we would shut down meeting places for bank robbers if they existed; gays, like thieves, harm society.”
In the United States, dozens of small far-right extremist groups are flagrantly racist, anti-Semitic, and homophobic, not to mention prone to violence; some of them even maintain their own armed secret militia. The Ku Klux Klan is perhaps the most notorious of these groups. Often, the ideologies of such groups are largely based on a
Protestant
fundamentalism which distorts the message of the Gospel. In this way of thinking, at least according to the Reverend Peter J. Peters, pastor of a small parish in Colorado, northern Europeans are the “chosen people” spoken of in the
Bible
, while blacks are inferior to whites, Jews are a menace to the Western world, and all homosexuals should be executed. Even if the potential impact of such an extreme fanatic is small, it is all too true that in the United States, the far right in general is greatly influenced by backward, fundamentalist religious beliefs. The Christian Coalition boasts that it has over 1 million members, and almost 10% of the American population identifies with the “Christian right,” which works to impose its so-called family and Christian values on elected officials and the general public, and which openly declares that “God hates fags!” According to a 1995 survey in
Newsweek
magazine, 21% of Americans and 43% of Evangelical Christians (that is, fundamentalist) believe that the gay movement is “Satan incarnate.”
In many
Latin American
nations, far-right homophobia is not limited to hate speech, as homophobic individuals (often police officers or soldiers) or death squads do not hesitate to assassinate homosexuals (just as they murder Marxists, militant unionists, the homeless, and street kids) in order to “cleanse” the country. In Colombia, a country torn apart by violence and political murder, death squads have declared that “the homosexuals … are a plague that needs to be wiped out.” In Peru, members of a small far-right group known as Mata Cabros (that is, “Kill the Queers”) assassinated forty transvestites in Lima between 1990 and 1991. But it is Brazil that, despite its reputation as a gay paradise, has been declared “the world leader in homophobia” by human rights associations. According to 1998 statistics, which underestimate the reality, at least 1,900 homosexuals were killed in Brazil by the far right over the preceding twenty years, usually after being brutally tortured; during the 1980s, there was an average of eighty per year, and during the 1990s, an average of 120 per year (meaning one homophobic murder every three days). In 1996 alone, the Brazilian far right was deemed responsible for the deaths of 116 homosexuals: seventy-three gay men, seven lesbians, and thirty-six transvestites or transsexuals, the latter being particularly detested by partisans of the “moral order.”