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Thomas Jefferson

2009-12-02T19:44:45Z

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{{President
|image=TCJJ.jpg
|seq=3
|term_start=March 4, 1801
|term_end=March 4, 1809<ref>http://www.aboutfamouspeople.com/article1095.html</ref>
|party=Democratic-Republican
|vp=Aaron Burr
|vp_dates=1801-1805
|2vp=George Clinton
|2vp_dates=1805-1809
|previous=John Adams
|next=James Madison
|office2=vice
|seq2=2
|term_start2=March 4, 1797
|term_end2=March 4, 1801
|party2=Democratic-Republican
|pres2=John Adams
|pres_dates2=
|previous2=John Adams
|next2=Aaron Burr
|birth_date=April 13, 1743
|birth_place=Shadwell, Virginia
|death_date=July 4, 1826
|death_place=Charlottesville, Virginia
|spouse=Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson
|religion=Deist/Unitarian?
}}
'''Thomas Jefferson''' (1743-1826), was one of main proponents of democracy in world history and one of the leading [[Founding Fathers]] of the United States. He was the primary author of the [[Declaration of Independence]] (1776), the first Secretary of State (1789-1793), the founder of one of the world's two first political parties, the [[Democratic-Republican Party|Jeffersonian Republican Party]] (1793) in opposition to the [[Federalist Party]] of his arch-rival [[Alexander Hamilton]].

A friend of France and the French Revolution, and a bitter enemy of Britain in the 1790s, Jefferson soured on France after [[Napoleon]] came to power and ended democracy there. As President (1801-1809) Jefferson purchased Louisiana in 1803, but relations with Britain soured after 1805, leading to the [[War of 1812]]. Jefferson is best known as political theorist who helped redefine [[republicanism]] and promoted democracy and equal rights, while fighting aristocracy and established religion.

==Early Career==
Jefferson was the third child born to a well-connected tobacco planter family of moderate wealth in Goochland County on Virginia's western frontier. His father, Peter Jefferson (1707-57), of Welsh descent, owned slaves and was a county magistrate was elected to the House of Burgesses (the colonial legislature). His mother, Jane Randolph, belonged to the leading family in the British colony. Peter taught the boy farming; they hunted and fished together. His formal education began under two Anglican ministers. He became proficient in Latin and Greek and had later became proficient in French. He was also tutored in dancing, became polished on the violin, learned chess, avoided cards, and was a fearless and accomplished horseman. His father died in 1757 leaving him some slaves and 2,750 acres of undeveloped farmland.<ref>Merrill D. Peterson, ''Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation: A Biography'' (1975) ch. 1</ref>

Jefferson was well educated at [[William and Mary College]] (class of 1762), and studied law. He was a polymath who read voraciously in history, politics, philosophy, linguistics, architecture and natural science. He studied science with Dr. William Small, who introduce him to Gov. Francis Fauquier and to George Wythe, the leading legal expert of the day in Virginia, who directed Jefferson's reading in law. He was a well-disciplined student who ignored the gambling and horse-racing of his peers to immerse himself in science law and history. He lost his Anglican religion along the way. He mastered the common law treatises of Sir [[Edward Coke]], and was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1767. He was successful but did not enjoy the tasks and gave up his practice by 1774. However the lawyerly style reappears in his famous state papers where he acts the advocate pleading a cause and buttressing it with precedents. Jefferson was never a good speaker, but he excelled in learning and industry and in precision and clarity of writing. His written arguments are powerful; his "Declaration of Independence" remains the touchstone for powerful argumentation.
==Patriot==
Jefferson had absorbed both the latest ideas of the [[Enlightenment]] and the precepts of [[republicanism]] as taught by the pamphlets of the British "country party", which had long been out of power. Jefferson became committed to the ancient rights of Englishmen possessed by Virginians; he was outraged that parliament would threaten those rights.

As the storms of the 1770s broke young Jefferson had never fully exercised his powerful intellect or fluent pen; he was known as a promising lawyer in a land of great lawyers, a successful planter in a slave society, and a lover of books, science, and music in a land of horse-racing. He was a loyal subject of King [[George III]]. From 1768 to 1775 Jefferson was a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses for Albemarle.
==Congress==
In 1773, following the lead of Massachusetts, Jefferson helped establish Virginia's Provincial Committee of Correspondence to keep in touch the other 12 colonies and operate as a shadow government in defiance of the governor. In 1774 he drew up resolutions that were published by the first Virginia convention as "A Summary View of the Rights of British America."<ref> see [http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/jeffsumm.htm for text]</ref> This pamphlet, issued in four editions that year, argued that Parliament had no right to legislate for the colonies and that the British Empire was bound together solely by allegiance to the king. It proved one of the most influential statements of the patriot position and was widely read.

In 1775 Jefferson was elected to the Second [[Continental Congress]], meeting in Philadelphia. He drafted the resolution rejecting the conciliatory proposals of the British minister, [[Lord North]]. He was appointed county lieutenant in September and did not return to Congress until May 1776. He drafted a proposed constitution for the state of Virginia which was adopted in part.
===Declaration of Independence===
As a delegate to the [[Continental Congress]] he and [[John Adams]] of Massachusetts took the lead in pushing for independence. On June 7, 1776, [[Richard Henry Lee]] of the Virginia delegation proposed independence. Congress appointed a committee of five men to draw up a suitable public declaration. Jefferson was selected to write it because he was a Virginian, a recognized writer, and a zealous committeeman. He incorporated ideas and phrases from many sources to arrive at a consensus statement that all patriots could agree upon. His colleagues [[Benjamin Franklin]] and Adams made small changes in his draft text and Congress made more. The finished document, which both declared independence and proclaimed a philosophy of government, was singly and peculiarly Jefferson's.<ref> See [http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration.html "Declaration of Independence"]</ref>

The opening philosophical section is closely based on [[George Mason]]'s "Declaration of Rights," a notable summary of current revolutionary philosophy.<ref> see [http://gunstonhall.org/documents/vdr.html "The Virginia Declaration of Rights," Final Draft,12 June 1776]</ref>
Mason wrote:
::That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.
Jefferson rewrote it:
::We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Jefferson himself did not believe in absolute human equality, and, though he had no fears of revolution, he preferred that the "social compact" be renewed by periodical, peaceful revisions. That government should be based on popular consent and secure the "inalienable" rights of man, among which he included the pursuit of happiness rather than property, that it should be a means to human well-being and not an end in itself, he steadfastly believed. He gave here a matchless expression of his faith.

The charges against King [[George III]], who is singled out because the patriots denied all claims of parliamentary authority, represent an improved version of charges that Jefferson wrote for the preamble of the Virginia constitution of 1776. Relentless in their reiteration, they constitute a statement of the specific grievances of the revolting party, powerfully and persuasively presented at the bar of public opinion.

The Declaration is notable for both its clarity and subtlety of expression, and it abounds in the felicities that are characteristic of Jefferson's best prose.<ref> See Carl Becker, ''The Declaration of Independence: A Study in the History of Political Ideas'' (1922) ch. 5, [http://books.google.com/books?id=VC5nCgcUmjsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=intitle:declaration+intitle:of+intitle:independence&lr=&num=30&as_brr=1 online edition]; Garry Wills, ''Inventing America: Jefferson's Declaration of Independence.'' (1978); Pauline Maier, ''American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence.'' (1997)</ref> More impassioned than any other of his writings, it is eloquent in its sustained elevation of style and remains his noblest literary monument.

The concepts of natural law, of inviolable rights, and of government by consent were drawn from the [[Republicanism|republican tradition]] that stretched back to ancient Rome and was neither new nor distinctively American. However it was unprecedented for a nation to declare that it would be governed by these propositions. It was Jefferson's almost religious commitment to these republican propositions that is the key to his entire life. He was more than the author of this statement of the national purpose: he was a living example of its philosophy, accepting its ideals as the controlling principles of his own life. Congress adopted the Declaration on July 4, 1776, which became the birthday of the independent nation.<ref>Peterson, ''Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation'' (1975) ch. 2</ref>

When the Declaration was signed, all British forces had been driven out of the 13 colonies, which now became the 13 states. However King [[George III]] refused to give up and of "his" possessions, so the war dragged on until the final American victory at Yorktown in 1781 caused Parliament to change the government in London and sue for peace.
====World impact====
The Declaration immediately sparked serious discussion in Europe and Latin America about the legitimacy of empires. By the 21st century, over 100 countries had their own declarations of independence, modeled in part on the very forst one by Jefferson in 1776.<ref> Historians discount the influence of previous declarations. David Armitage, ''The Declaration of Independence: A Global History'' (2007) [http://www.amazon.com/Declaration-Independence-Global-History/dp/0674022823/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1212623939&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search]</ref>

==Reforming Virginia==
In September 1776 Jefferson left the national capital in Philadelphia and spent the rest of the war in Virginia, where he took control of the legislature and had a significant impact in shaping the laws of the new state.<ref>Peterson, ''Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation'' (1975) ch. 3</ref> In the House of Delegates he proposed a series of major reforms--almost unparalleled in scope and unequaled as the work of a single legislator. Of 126 bills he proposed, four-fifths were enacted in some form; and Jefferson drew up almost half the total. In 1779 he proposed "The Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom," which was adopted in 1786.<ref> see [http://www.lva.lib.va.us/whatwedo/k12/bor/vsrftext.htm text]</ref> Its goal was complete separation of church and state and declared the opinions of men to be beyond the jurisdiction of the civil magistrate. He asserted that the mind is not subject to coercion, that civil rights have no dependence on religious opinions, and that the opinions of men are not the concern of civil government, became one of the American charters of freedom. This elevated declaration of the freedom of the mind was hailed in Europe as "an example of legislative wisdom and liberality never before known."<ref> See Richard Price to Sylvanus Urban,, July 26, 1786, in [http://books.google.com/books?id=fPQfNx2TQLAC&pg=RA1-PA45&lpg=RA1-PA45&dq=%22an+example+of+legislative+wisdom+and+liberality+&source=web&ots=Z8wRAaAAty&sig=1ytdIIZ6IjyzlbESYVtGAPWy40E&hl=en Richard Price, ''The correspondence of Richard Price,'' (1991) vol. 2, p. 45 online]</ref>

Jefferson put forth numerous proposals to reform public education, but they failed at this time. He did manage to abolish the professorships of Hebrew, theology, and ancient languages at the College of William and Mary, and instead set up professorships of anatomy and medicine, law, and modern languages, the two latter being the first of their kind in America. His proposals to gradually end slavery were not reported out of committee.

His laws on inheritance ended the practice of primogeniture, whereby the eldest son inherited the entire estate, so as to spread out wealth more evenly and open up opportunities for more young men.

In 1779 he was elected to succeed [[Patrick Henry]] as governor of Virginia for a one year term. Everything went wrong. British invasions by land and sea, Indian raids in the west, fiscal shortfalls, militia problems, profiteering, personal rivalries, and the shift of the main theater of war to Virginia created more challenges than he could solve. Re-elected in 1780, he saw the main British army under Cornwallis enter from the South in 1781; the Continental Army commander, General Von Steuben, was outmaneuvered. Jefferson quit office before his successor was named and the legislature had fled; he was almost captured when the British raided Monticello looking for him. Fortunately Washington arrived with the American and French armies and trapped Cornwallis at Yorktown, where the entire British army surrendered. Later the legislature investigated his administration and vindicated him, but Jefferson was embarrassed. Jefferson was an efficient, systematic, indefatigable administrator with a knack for getting men to work together smoothly, but his militia could not match the British army. He coped with these problems with a degree of success or failure that remains controversial among scholars. <ref>Peterson, ''Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation'' (1975) ch. 4</ref>

He suffered an irreparable loss when his beloved wife Martha died in 1782 and he gave up all idea of ever marrying again; they had three surviving daughters—Martha (1772–1836), Mary (1778–1804), and Lucy (1782–1784).
===''Notes on the State of Virginia''===
In 1780-83, Jefferson wrote his only book, ''Notes on the State of Virginia.''<ref> See [http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/JEFFERSON/toc.html for complete text of ''Notes on the State of Virginia'']</ref> It was written in the form of answers to questions about the geography, natural resources, Indians, government and economy of Virginia, based on his own research. The book was first published in French in Paris in 1785 (and in English in 1787), and immediately Jefferson's scientific reputation in Europe, while debunking some outlandish theories, especially those of the eminent naturalist the [[Comte de Buffon]], to the effect that animals regressed to smaller size in the new world. Jefferson's coup came with the mammoth, the giant extinct animal, five times bigger than an elephant, whose tusks, grinders, and bones had been recently dug up in the western part of the state.<ref>Peterson, ''Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation'' (1975) pp 242-52; Thomas O. Jewett, [http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/2000_fall/jefferson_paleon.html "Thomas Jefferson Paleontologist," ''Early America Review'', Fall 2000 online]</ref>

==Confederation Congress==
In 1783 Jefferson returned to Congress, became its leader, and launched another intensive legislative effort. His major achievement was conceptualizing a solution for territorial government in the land north of the Ohio River. Virginia ceded its land claims to the national government, Jefferson proposed a checkerboard system of land surveys, which avoided the terrible confusion that caused endless lawsuits over land ownership south of the river. One section in every sixteen was set aside to support public schools. Statehood was promised once a territory reached a certain population. Jefferson would not allow slavery in the territories. Many of Jefferson's ideas were passed into law after he left Congress, notably in the Land Ordinance of 1785 and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.<ref>Peterson, ''Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation'' (1975) pp 274-85</ref>

Jefferson's report on coinage established the decimal dollar as the unit of money, though he failed then and later to secure a system of uniform weights and measures based on decimal notation.

==Minister to France==
He succeeded [[Benjamin Franklin]] as minister to France (1785-89), and so was not present when the Constitution was written and ratified.<ref>Peterson, ''Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation'' (1975) ch. 6</ref>

==1790s==

Jefferson returned from France in 1789 and became the first Secretary of State (1789-1793) in the cabinet of President [[George Washington]]. With his close ally [[James Madison]] (a member of the House) Jefferson opposed the Hamiltonian programs for national finance, especially assumption of state wartime debts and the [[First National Bank]]. Jefferson and Madison and created a new party the Republicans, (called the [[Democratic-Republican Party]] by historians) to oppose Hamilton's [[Federalist party]]. These were the first two modern political parties in the world (that is the first to reach out to the voters for support). Jefferson and his Republicans supported the French Revolution (from 1793 to 1800), while the Federalists favored Britain. President Washington managed to maintain neutrality in the war between Britain and France. Hamilton had more influence than Jefferson, even in foreign policy, as shown by Hamilton's success in securing the [[Jay Treaty]] of 1795 that opened ten years of friendly trade with Britain.<ref>Peterson, ''Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation'' (1975) ch. 7</ref>

Jefferson was defeated for president in the election of 1796 by [[John Adams]], but became Vice President. When the [[Quasi War]] (that is undeclared war) with France broke out in 1798 and Federalists passed the [[Alien and Sedition laws]], Jefferson and Madison protested by secretly writing the [[Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions]] of 1798. They argued the right of state governments to nullify federal laws considered unconstitutional; this was the start of the [[States Rights]] theory that played a role in the coming of the [[American Civil War]] in 1861 and still plays a role in Constitutional debates.<ref>Peterson, ''Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation'' (1975) ch. 8</ref>

==President: Successful first term, 1801-1805==
Jefferson defeated Adams and was elected President in 1800, in what his supporters called the [[Revolution of 1800]]. In his first term Jefferson negotiated the [[Louisiana Purchase]] with France. then sent [[Lewis and Clark]] to explore the vast new lands. He set up a territorial system for the Louisiana purchase. He promoted reservations for Indians to settle them on fixed parcels of land and teach them farming (instead of hunting and raiding).<ref>Peterson, ''Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation'' (1975) ch. 9</ref>

Jefferson removed many Federalist office holders in order to balance the civil service between parties. Bitterly opposed to strong judges, he had Congress abolish the lower courts the Federalists had created, and tried to impeach and remove two Federalist judges. He succeeded in removing one [[John Pickering|incompetent figure]] but was defeated when he tried to remove Supreme Court Justice [[Samuel Chase]]. Jefferson never dared attack Chief Justice [[John Marshall]], a Federalist who made the Supreme Court a bastion of nationalism, much to Jefferson's disgust.
==President: Troubled second term, 1805-1809==
Jefferson's second term was marked by escalating tensions with both Britain and France (which were at war with each other). Jefferson's use of economic warfare, especially the [[Embargo of 1807]], failed, as he tried to crack down on New England merchants who defied laws that restricted their trade. Jefferson opposed building up the army or navy, insisting that the militia would suffice, aided by small gunboats.

Most historians judge his military policies a major disaster, for they failed badly when [[War of 1812]] with Britain came three years after he left office.<ref>Peterson, ''Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation'' (1975) ch. 10</ref>

Jefferson left the White House under a cloud, and never ran for office again.
==Retirement==
In political retirement Jefferson helped create and design the [[University of Virginia]], which he considered a major accomplishment. He believed that republican government depends on an informed citizenry; that education is a duty of the state; and that, while all should be given learning sufficient to enable them to understand their rights and duties as citizens, the "natural aristocracy" of virtue and talent should be drawn forth from the general mass and given every opportunity of public education. He continued through life to advocate this philosophy of education.<ref>Peterson, ''Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation'' (1975) ch. 11</ref>

Jefferson died on July 4th, [[Independence Day]], in 1826. It was the same day as the death of [[John Adams]]. They had been close friends until the political wars of the 1790s drove them apart, then resumed their friendship with a brilliant correspondence.

==Image and memory==
The modern [[Democratic Party]] claims direct descent from Jefferson--an exaggeration because the Jeffersonian party died in the mid 1820s and the modern party was formed in the 1830s. Jefferson has been commemorated in the names of many counties and schools. Conservative commentator [[George Will]] has called Jefferson the "Man of the Millennium"-- that is the most influential person in world history over the last 1000 years.

==Jefferson's views==
===Slavery===
In ''Notes on the State of Virginia'' (1785) Jefferson deplored the despotic, lawless treatment of slaves, suggesting that the only remedy was to emancipate and remove Virginia's slaves and then declare them a free and independent people. Colonization to an unspecified destination was necessary because racial co-existence was impossible; emancipation otherwise would produce "convulsions which will probably never end but in the extermination of one or the other race." Differences between the two races were "fixed in nature", he said:
:"Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me, that in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior...and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous."<ref> Jefferson, [http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/JEFFERSON/ch14.html ''Notes on the State of Virginia'' ch 14]</ref>

Jefferson believed that, eventually, all Americans had to be free. His goals for unlimited national improvement were incompatible with slaves in America. Both slavery and the slave trade would have to be ended in favor of free commerce and free labor. The key word for Jefferson was "amelioration," and it included several stages of national and moral development. First, Americans would abolish the slave trade. "Citizens," President Jefferson declared in 1806, should "withdraw . . . from all further participation in those violations of human rights which have been so long continued on the unoffending inhabitants of Africa" to promote "the morality, the reputation, and the best interests of our country."<ref> "Sixth Annual Message," December 2, 1806</ref> Second, the owners should raise up the moral and intellectual levels of their slaves. As masters established ties of reciprocal obligation and sympathy with their slaves, they would prepare themselves—and their slaves for the emancipation and repatriation of all Africans back to Africa. He in fact did secure the abolition by Congress of the international slave trade in 1808. He owned slaves--some 200 at one time or another--but despite his theoretical opposition to slavery he was always so much in debt he could never free them.<ref> Christa Dierksheide, "'The great improvement and civilization of that race': Jefferson and the 'Amelioration' of Slavery, ca. 1770–1826," ''Early American Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal'' 6#1 Spring 2008, pp. 165-197. </ref>

Helo and Onuf (2003) have explored the logic of Jefferson's philosophical position against slavery in light of his ownership of slaves and his belief that the wholesale and immediate emancipation of slaves would threaten the new Republic. Heavily influenced by the writings of political philosophers Charles de Montesquieu, Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui, and especially Lord Kames, Jefferson grounded his position regarding slavery on the Kamesian principle that man was capable of moral development and, consequently, moral codes varied among different nations and progressed (or retrograded) over time in each nation. Kames posited that moral progress in a society, however, required a government. These concepts and others helped Jefferson shape his arguments in the Declaration of Independence, as rationale for the American Revolution. Moreover, they were the basis for his belief that slaves should be freed only when they could be assured of having their own government and a means, thereby, of self-determination as well as practical and moral education. Jefferson was convinced that emancipation on a large scale, before Virginia slaveholders and American society as a whole advanced morally, would precipitate racial violence and put the American experiment at risk.<ref>Ari Helo and Peter Onuf, "Jefferson, Morality, and the Problem of Slavery." ''William and Mary Quarterly'' 2003 60(3): 583-614. Issn: 0043-5597 Fulltext: [[History Cooperative]] </ref>

===Religion===
Although he did not join a denomination, Jefferson was keenly interested in religion. He worked tirelessly to create a "wall of separation" between church and state, fearing that unifying the two would create tyranny over the free minds of people. He had a very negative view of the Roman Catholic Church, and succeeded in disestablishing the Anglican [[Church of England]] in Virginia during the Revolution.

Most scholars have concluded that Jefferson was a [[deist]],<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Deist_thinkers</ref> but Jefferson's own description of his views show more complexity.

In one of his writings now inscribed on the [[Jefferson Memorial]] in Washington, D.C., Jefferson said:

<blockquote>God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever.</blockquote>

Jefferson's Second Inaugural Address implied that he believed in divine intervention:<blockquote>"I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our forefathers, as Israel of old."</blockquote>

In an 1803 letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, Jefferson declared that "I am a Christian," though his view of Christianity was different from most:
<blockquote>I then promised you that one day or other I would give you my views of [the Christian religion]. They are the result of a life of inquiry and reflection, and very different from that anti-Christian system imputed to me by those who know nothing of my opinions. To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed, but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished anyone to be: sincerely attached to his doctrines in preference to all others, ascribing to himself every human excellence, and believing he never claimed any other.<ref>Jefferson, Thomas, April 21, 1803: Letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush[http://www.angelfire.com/co/JeffersonBible/jeffbsyl.html]</ref></blockquote>

However, despite Jefferson's self-declared Christianity, many of his views would be considered heretical by most theologians. Most notably, he attempted to create the ''Jefferson Bible'' - an edited version of the ''New Testament'' that retained Christ's moral and practical teaching, while dropping supernatural elements.

Jefferson certainly believed Jesus to be a great teacher of morality, and believed the universe to be created by a God. Less clear is his views on subjects such as the divinity of Christ, the resurrection, sin and salvation. The ''Jefferson Bible'' suggests he rejects these ideas entirely, but is not definitive. Jefferson never had his Bible published during his lifetime. He did have this to say about Christianity and the message contained in the work that he created.

<blockquote>There will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man.<ref>http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/jefferson_m_03.html</ref></blockquote>

===The Right to Bear Arms===
"In a nation governed by the people themselves, the possession of arms to defend their nation against usurpers within and without was deemed absolutely necessary. This right is protected by the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution. A gun was an everyday implement in early American society, and Jefferson recommended its use." <ref>[http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1500.htm#Arms Jefferson on Politics & Government: Civil Rights]</ref>

<blockquote>A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun, therefore, be the constant companion of your walks. --Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 1785. ME 5:85, Papers 8:407</blockquote>

<blockquote>The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that... it is their right and duty to be at all times armed. --Thomas Jefferson to John Cartwright, 1824. ME 16:45</blockquote>

<blockquote>One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them. --Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 1796. ME 9:341</blockquote>

=== Architecture ===
[[Image:University of Virginia.jpg|thumb|The Rotunda of the University of Virginia. It was designed by Thomas Jefferson.]]

Jefferson was the founder of the University of Virginia and designer of ''his "academical village"''; he made the drawings for ''The Rotunda'' in 1819. Self-taught in architecture, read widely and studied the great structures of Europe firsthand. He , assisted [[Pierre L'Enfant]] in the design and layout of the new Federal City (Washington, D.C.) and designed the state capitol building in Richmond. Jefferson believed that "from architecture would flow education in taste, values, and ideals," and therefore constructed buildings that became ideas for America. '' <ref>[http://xroads.virginia.edu/~cap/jeff/jeffarch.html Jefferson and the Politics of Architecture]</ref>

<blockquote>
Jefferson believed that architecture was the heart of the American cause. In his mind, a building was not merely a walled structure, but a metaphor for American ideology, and the process of construction was equal to the task of building a nation. The architecture of any American building should express the American desire to break cultural--as well as political--ties to Europe. American architecture, Jefferson believed, would embody the fulfillment of the civic life of Americans, and he sought to establish the standards of a national architecture, both aesthetically and politically.
</blockquote>

Jefferson was an admirer of [[Andrea Palladio]]; the Palladian influece may be seen at Thomas Jefferson's estate Monticello (1768 - 1809).<ref> [http://www.oldandsold.com/articles10/famous-buildings-51.shtml Famous Buildings In America]</ref>

<blockquote>
[[Thomas Jefferson]] was among the many people who submitted a plan for the White House. His design, however, was not chosen. Instead, James Hoban, an Irish immigrant architect living in Charleston, [[South Carolina]], won the competition and a $500 prize, with a design modeled after Leister House in [[Dublin]], [[Ireland]]. <ref>[http://www.americaslibrary.gov/cgi-bin/page.cgi/jb/nation/whitehse_2 The White House.]</ref>
</blockquote>
{{cquote|
''"Whenever it is proposed to prepare plans for the Capitol, I should prefer the adoption of some one of the models of antiquity which have had the approbation of thousands of years; and for the President's house I should prefer the celebrated fronts of modern buildings which have already received the approbation of all good judges. Such are the Galerie du Louvre, the Garde Meubles; and two fronts of the Hotel de Salm."'' T. Jefferson. <ref> Thomas Jefferson to L'Enfant, April 10, 1791, in Saul K. Padover, ed., Thomas Jefferson and the National Capital (Washington, D. C.: US Government Printing Office, 1946), 59. </ref>
}}

==Quotes==
*Speaking of great calamities, "There is yet one greater, submission to a government of unlimited powers." <ref>[http://books.google.com/books?id=InAsAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA351&dq=submission+to+a+government+of+unlimited+powers.+Jefferson&ei=8CQrSqarK6CIzQTnpfyyBw The Writings of Thomas Jefferson : 1816-1826.‎ - Page 351] by Thomas Jefferson, Paul Leicester Ford</ref>
*"That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves." <ref name="Thomas">[http://books.google.com/books?id=HgM4tztnJFcC&pg=PA240&dq=government+big+enough+to+give+you+everything&ei=hhc5SoekCKeQyASNj4iLAw Civiliazation's quotes P.240] by Richard Alan Krieger </ref>
*"Government big enough to give you everything you need is government big enough to take away everything you have."<ref name="Thomas">[http://books.google.com/books?id=HgM4tztnJFcC&pg=PA240&dq=government+big+enough+to+give+you+everything&ei=hhc5SoekCKeQyASNj4iLAw Civiliazation's quotes P.240] by Richard Alan Krieger]</ref>
*In a letter to Philips Mazzei, "Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty." <ref>[http://books.google.com/books?id=W5MfcSfA_eUC&pg=PA147&dq=Timid+men+prefer+the+calm+of+despotism+to+the+tempestuous+sea+of+liberty.&ei=2x1ESu6iAZSuzQTJ5NDUDw Jefferson's second revolution P.147] By Susan Dunn</ref>
*"Let our countrymen know that the people alone can protect us against these evils of misgovernment." <ref>[http://books.google.com/books?id=Ak6TAAAAIAAJ&q=Let+our+countrymen+know+that+the+people+alone+can+protect+us+against+these+evils+of+misgovernment.&dq=Let+our+countrymen+know+that+the+people+alone+can+protect+us+against+these+evils+of+misgovernment.&ei=5OlOSqq4LoT0yAS8i8DeAg Thomas Jefferson, world citizen- Page 71] by Elbert Duncan Thomas</ref>
*"I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature."

==Fake quotes==
Dozens of false quotations have been attributed to Jefferson.<ref> See the 28 fakes listed at [http://wiki.monticello.org/mediawiki/index.php/Category:Spurious_Quotations Spurious Quotations]</ref>
* Jefferson did NOT say, “A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine”. On the contrary, he was the foremost promoter of democracy in world history.
* In the 1960s leftwing activists invented another false quote: "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism".
* Jefferson did not like banks. He did NOT say, "If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered."
**Jefferson did say in 1816: "And I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale."
*Jefferson did NOT say, "The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not." He rarely used the word "democracy".<ref> See[http://wiki.monticello.org/mediawiki/index.php/Category:Spurious_Quotations Spurious Quotations]</ref>

==See also==
* [[Embargo of 1807]], his failed foreign policy
* [[Democratic-Republican party]], the party he led
* [[First Party System]], how politics worked
* [[Albert Gallatin]]. his Treasury Secretary
* [[Jeffersonian Democracy]], his political coalition
* [[James Madison]], his Secretary of State

==External links==
* [http://tigger.uic.edu/~rjensen/tj.htm "Jefferson: Man of the Millennium," by Richard Jensen], links
* [http://tigger.uic.edu/~rjensen/jefferson.html Dumas Malone, "Thomas Jefferson" excerpts from ''Dictionary of American Biography,'' Volume 5 1933], short biography by leading scholar, with links to web sources
==Further reading==
* Banning, Lance. ''The Jeffersonian Persuasion: Evolution of a Party Ideology'' (1978) [http://www.amazon.com/Jeffersonian-Persuasion-Evolution-Party-Ideology/dp/0801492009/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1195466092&sr=1-1 excerpt and text search]
* Bernstein, Richard B. ''Thomas Jefferson'' (2005) short biography [http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Jefferson-R-B-Bernstein/dp/0195181301/ref=pd_bbs_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201550604&sr=8-2 excerpt and text search]
* Channing, Edward. ''The Jeffersonian System, 1801-1811'' (1906) [http://books.google.com/books?id=BQcOAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=intitle:Jeffersonian+intitle:System+intitle:1801-1811&lr=&num=30&as_brr=0 full text online]* Cunningham, Noble E. Jr . ''In Pursuit of Reason: The Life of Thomas Jefferson'' (1988, short biography) [http://www.amazon.com/Pursuit-Reason-Life-Thomas-Jefferson/dp/0345353803/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203807419&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search]
* Ellis, Joseph J. ''American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson'' (1998), interpretive essays [http://www.amazon.com/American-Sphinx-Character-Thomas-Jefferson/dp/0679444904/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1197165858&sr=3 excerpt and text search]
* Ferling, John. ''Adams vs. Jefferson: The Tumultuous Election of 1800'' Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=108219147 online edition]
* Hofstadter, Richard. ''The American Political Tradition'' (1948), chapter on TJ [http://www.historyebook.org/ online at ACLS e-books]
* Koch, Adrienne. ''Philosophy of Thomas Jefferson.'' (1943) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=90632012 online edition]
* Onuf, Peter S. ''The Mind of Thomas Jefferson.'' (2007). 281 pp.
* Onuf, P. S. "Jefferson, Thomas (1743–1826)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography,'' (2004; online edn, May 2008; Onuf is a leading American scholar
* Peterson, Merrill D. ''The Jefferson Image in the American Mind'' (1960) [http://www.amazon.com/Jefferson-Image-American-Mind/dp/0813918510/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203807519&sr=8-10 excerpt and text search]
* Peterson, Merrill D. ''Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation: A Biography'' (1986), long, detailed biography by leading scholar; [http://www.questia.com/library/book/thomas-jefferson-and-the-new-nation-a-biography-by-merrill-d-peterson.jsp online edition]; also [http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Jefferson-New-Nation-Biography/dp/0195019091/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203807519&sr=8-2 excerpt and text search]
* Peterson, Merrill D. ed. ''Thomas Jefferson: A Reference Biography.'' (1986), very good, encyclopedic essays
* Smelser, Marshall. ''The Democratic Republic: 1801-1815'' (1968) good one-volume history of TJ's presidency and Madison's;
===Primary sources===
* Jefferson, Thomas. ''Writings'' (1984, Library of America); includes Autobiography, ''Notes on the State of Virginia,'' Public and Private Papers, Addresses and Letters. 1600pp [http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Jefferson-Writings-Autobiography-Addresses/dp/094045016X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203807519&sr=8-3 excerpt and text search]
* Jefferson, Thomas. ''Political Writings,'' edited by Joyce Appleby and Terence Ball; Cambridge University Press, 1999 [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=107255488 online edition]
* Jefferson, Thomas. ''Jeffersonian Cyclopedia'' 9000 quotes, well arranged [http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/foley/ online]

==References==
<references/>

{{USPresidents}}
{{USVicePresidents}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jefferson, Thomas}}
[[Category: Founding Fathers]]
[[Category:American Revolution]]
[[Category:Republicanism]]
[[Category:Early National U.S.]]
[[Category:Virginia Governors]]
[[Category:Enlightenment]]
[[Category:Democratic Party]]
[[Category:Political Theory]]
[[Category:Enlightenment]]
[[Category:Fiscal Conservatives]]
[[Category:Virginia]]
[[Category:Religion and Politics]]

History of homosexuality

2009-11-09T03:51:17Z

Tez711: Regardless of their accuracy, the sections I removed did not pertain directly to the history of Homosexuality, and I felt they should be removed from the article.

The study of the '''history of [[homosexuality]]''' attempts to catalog evidence of [[homosexual behavior]] from its earliest occurrences to the present, with this manner of perversion being manifested in different sources from ancient times.

==Terminology relating to the history of homosexuality ==
The use of the term ''[[homosexuality]]'' in the study of ancient sexuality has found some dissatisfaction, due to the lack of a specific term in ancient literature corresponding to the modern concept of persons who are consistently sexually attracted to their own gender, versus the opposite sex. However, ancient literature refers to those who by their actions seem to have manifested such, especially as regards the male who played the female partner.<ref>Aristotle, "Problemata," 4.26; 879b-880a</ref> The primary moral authority on the subject, the Bible, does not explicitly refer to homosexual inclination, though it is reasonable to believe that the word ''malakos'', translated ''effeminate'' (1Cor. 6:9) in the [[KJV]] may denote homosexual ''orientation'', and men lusting after one another in Romans 1:27 is seen as a typical manifestation of homosexuality. In contrast to modern times however, to be the effeminate partner in Greece or Rome was considered shameful for a man.<ref>Homosexuality and the Ancient Greeks, ReligionFacts.com</ref> The lack of terms in the Bible for certain behaviors which correspond to modern psychological diagnostics may also be explained as being due to the fact that the Bible does not justify inherently unlawful actions even if one has an inner inclination to do them, but calls and enables victory over such. (Gn. 4:7; Col. 3:5-8)

==Homosexuality in the Bible==
''Main article: [[Homosexuality and biblical interpretation]]''

''See also [[Homosexuality and the Bible]]''

Homosexuality, as evidenced by homosexual acts, or ''homoeroticism'', was manifested not long after the [[fall of man]] and its resultant harmful effects, with man realizing an Adamic nature and its tendency to sin, which may somewhat vary in intensity as to a type of sin.

The history of homosexuality in the Bible may begin in Genesis 9:2-24, in which many Christian scholars believe that [[Ham]], the youngest son of [[Noah]], committed a homosexual act on his father,<ref>[http://www.robgagnon.net/2Views/HomoViaRespNotesRev.pdf Notes to Gagnon’s Essay in the Gagnon-Via Two Views Book, #32, by Robert A. J. Gagnon, Ph.D.]</ref><ref>The Bible and Homosexual Practice, pp. 63-78, 91-110</ref> while the latter was asleep, having been overcome with wine.

[[Leviticus 18]] universally outlaws men laying with men as with women, with this being a capital crime, (Lv. 18:22; 20:13), with an additional separate prohibition evidently forbidding homosexual religious prostitution. (Dt. 23:17) The context of these commands is one which invokes the practice of Israel's surrounding culture as an example of what not to do, thus evidencing that homosexual relations and other sexual sins were pagan cultural practices. Additional evidence shows that homosexual practice was generally not outlawed in the Ancient Near East (ANE), and was certainly tolerated in that area and time in private as well as religious life.<ref>Mesopotamia: Writing, Reasoning, and the Gods, Jean Bottero, Univ of Chicago:1992, pp. 190-192</ref> Miller adds that in contrast, "Israel's God condemned this behavior in EVERY culture in which it was mentioned(!): ANE (i.e. Sodom), Canaanite and Egyptian (i.e. Lev 18:3), Israelite (Lev 18, 20), Roman (Rom 1), Hellenistic (I Tim 1.9), and Greek (I Cor 6.9)."<ref>[http://www.christian-thinktank.com/qamorite.html Good Question... Homosexual practices]</ref>

Homosexuality is overall revealed in the Bible to be an effect of idolatry,<ref>with the latter being manifest the mother of all sins: Ex. 20:2-5</ref>, and which may consist of formal or informal false gods.<ref>a false god being whatever is your ultimate object of affection or allegiance, or source of security</ref> (Is. 44:15-20; Jer. 2:27; Rm. 6:16; 1Jn. 2:16; 5:21)

In [[Romans 1]] the apostle Paul delineates stages of degeneration, with homoerotic desire and acts being a particular effect of making the God of creation, who uniquely created the women of the man and joined them in marriage, into an image of corruptible man. This type of this idolatry is yet seen to be taking place today by pro homosexual authors, such as Roman Catholic priest Daniel A. Helminiak<ref>pro homosexual priest Daniel Helminiak, Sex and the sacred, p. 192</ref> who assert that the incorruptible [[Jesus Christ]] engaged in homosexual relations. Such extreme blasphemous attempts are refuted by Derrick K. Olliff and Dewey H. Hodges<ref>[http://www.reformed.org/social/index.html?mainframe=http://www.reformed.org/social/hodges_response_helminiak.html A Reformed Response to Daniel Helminiak's Gay Theology]</ref> and others.<ref>[http://www.robgagnon.net/BelovedDisciple.htm] by Robert A. J. Gagnon,]</ref><ref>Patrick Holding, Does John 21:20 Show That Jesus Was Gay?[http://www.tektonics.org/gk/gayjesus.html]</ref>

Homosexual behavior was especially manifest in Rome and Greece at that time, but which was and is a historical constant among all peoples, in differing but deleterious forms, and with different degrees of moral degeneration being realized. For the follower of the Bible therefore, homosexuality is not new, nor unexpected, but neither is it justified, rather it is unequivocally condemned, while God is revealed as giving man grace to resist and overcome sin. (Gn. 4:7; Ja. 1:12-15' 1Cor. 6:9-11)

==Jewish and early ecclesiastical attitudes toward homosexuality==

The history of homosexuality as regards the position of Judaism and Christianity is testified to by extra-biblical accounts of ancient historians, commentators and leaders. As concerns Jewish beliefs, Gagnon notes in the study of [[homosexuality and biblical interpretation]], that "every piece of evidence that we have about Jewish views of same-sex intercourse in the Second Temple period and beyond is unremittingly hostile to such behavior.<ref>The Bible and Homosexual Practice, pp. 159-83</ref><ref>[http://www.robgagnon.net/2VOnlineNotes.htm Gagnon, Notes to Gagnon’s Essay in the Gagnon-Via Two Views Book]</ref><ref>Gagnon, The Bible and Homosexual Practice, pp. 159-83</ref>

First Century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (AD 37-100) wrote in his Commentary on the history of the Jews,

*As for adultery, Moses forbade it entirely, as esteeming it a happy thing that men should be wise in the affairs of wedlock; and that it was profitable both to cities and families that children should be known to be genuine. He also abhorred men’s lying with their mothers, as one of the greatest crimes; and the like for lying with the father’s wife, and with aunts, and sisters, and sons’ wives, as all instances of abominable wickedness. He also forbade a man to lie with his wife when she was defiled by her natural purgation: and not to come near brute beasts; nor to approve of the lying with a male, which was to hunt after unlawful pleasures on account of beauty. To those who were guilty of such insolent behavior, he ordained death for their punishment.” (Antiquities, 3:12.1)<ref>http://www.godrules.net/library/flavius/flaviusb3c12.htm</ref>

Also,

*And why do not the Eleans and Thebans abolish that unnatural (para physin) and impudent lust, which makes them lie with males? For they will not shew sufficient sign of their repentance of what they of old thought to be very excellent, and very advantageous in their practices, unless they entirely avoid all such actions for the time to come: nay, such things are inserted into the body of their laws, and had once such a power among the Greeks, that they ascribed these sodomitical practices to the gods themselves, as part of their good character; and indeed it was according to the same manner that the gods married their own sisters. This the Greeks contrived as an apology for their own absurd and unnatural (para physin) pleasures. (Against Apion, 2.273-75)<ref>[http://www.reformed.org/social/index.html?mainframe=http://www.reformed.org/social/response_to_helminiak_2.html A Further Look at Pro-Homosexual Theology, by Derrick K. Olliff and Dewey H. Hodges]</ref>

More abundant are statements by early church leaders on the subject, which, though not wholly inspired as the Scriptures, are, manifest a Biblical response to homosexuality, and sometimes also testify to the existence of homosexuality among the Greeks and Romans.

*You shall not commit fornication; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not be a corrupter of youth. - Letter of Barnabas 10 (A.D. 74).

*You shall not commit murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not commit pederasty, you shall not commit fornication, you shall not steal, you shall not practice magic, you shall not practice witchcraft, you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill one that has been born. - Didache 2:2 (A.D. 90).

*...to expose newly-born children is the part of wicked men; and this we have been taught lest we should do anyone harm and lest we should sin against God, first, because we see that almost all so exposed (not only the girls, but also the males) are brought up to prostitution. And for this pollution a multitude of females and hermaphrodites, and those who commit unmentionable iniquities, are found in every nation...And there are some who prostitute even their own children and wives, and some are openly mutilated for the purpose of sodomy; and they refer these mysteries to the mother of the gods. - Justin Martyr, First Apology 27 (A.D. 151).

*All honor to that king of the Scythians, whoever Anacharsis was, who shot with an arrow one of his subjects who imitated among the Scythians the mystery of the mother of the gods . . . condemning him as having become effeminate among the Greeks, and a teacher of the disease of effeminacy to the rest of the Scythians. Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks 2 (A.D. 190).

*For your gods did not even abstain from boys, one having loved Hylas, another Hyacinthus, another Pelops, another Chrysippus, another Ganymede. - Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks 2 (A.D. 190).

*[A]ll other frenzies of the lusts which exceed the laws of nature, and are impious toward both bodies and the sexes, we banish, not only from the threshold but also from all shelter of the Church, for they are not sins so much as monstrosities. - Tertullian, Modesty 4 (A.D. 220).

*[T]urn your looks to the abominations, not less to be deplored, of another kind of spectacle…Men are emasculated, and all the pride and vigor of their sex is effeminated in the disgrace of their enervated body; and he is more pleasing there who has most completely broken down the man into the woman. He grows into praise by virtue of his crime; and the more he is degraded, the more skillful he is considered to be. Such a one is looked upon--oh shame!--and looked upon with pleasure…nor is there wanting authority for the enticing abomination…that Jupiter of theirs [is] not more supreme in dominion than in vice, inflamed with earthly love in the midst of his own thunders…now breaking forth by the help of birds to violate the purity of boys. And now put the question: Can he who looks upon such things be healthy-minded or modest? Men imitate the gods whom they adore, and to such miserable beings their crimes become their religion. - Cyprian of Carthage, Letters 1:8 (A.D. 253).

"[T]he mother of the gods loved [the boy Attis] exceedingly, because he was of most surpassing beauty; and Acdestis [the son of Jupiter] who was his companion, as he grew up fondling him, and bound to him by wicked compliance with his lust…Afterwards, under the influence of wine, he [Attis] admits that he is…loved by Acdestis…Then Midas, king of Pessinus, wishing to withdraw the youth from so disgraceful an intimacy, resolves to give him his own daughter in marriage…Acdestis, bursting with rage because of the boy's being torn from himself and brought to seek a wife, fills all the guests with frenzied madness; the Phrygians shriek, panic-stricken at the appearance of the gods . . . [Attis] too, now filled with furious passion, raving frantically and tossed about, throws himself down at last, and under a pine tree mutilates himself, saying, `Take these, Acdestis, for which you have stirred up so great and terribly perilous commotions.'" - Arnobius, Against the Pagans 5:6-7 (A.D. 305).

“But we do not say so of that mixture that is contrary to nature, or of any unlawful practice; for such are enmity to God. For the sin of Sodom is contrary to nature, as is also that with brute beasts. But adultery and fornication are against the law; the one whereof is impiety, the other injustice, and, in a word, no other than a great sin. But neither sort of them is without its punishment in its own proper nature. For the practicers of one sort attempt the dissolution of the world, and endeavor to make the natural course of things to change for one that is unnatural; but those of the second son — the adulterers — are unjust by corrupting others’ marriages, and dividing into two what God hath made one, rendering the children suspected, and exposing the true husband to the snares of others. And fornication is the destruction of one’s own flesh, not being made use of for the procreation of children, but entirely for the sake of pleasure, which is a mark of incontinency, and not a sign of virtue. All these things are forbidden by the laws; for thus say the oracles: Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind. For such a one is accursed, and ye shall stone them with stones: they have wrought abomination.” - Methodius, bishop of Olympus and Patara (AD 260-312), Commentary on the sin of Sodom.

"[H]aving forbidden all unlawful marriage, and all unseemly practice, and the union of women with women and men with men, he [God] adds: `Do not defile yourselves with any of these things; for in all these things the nations were defiled, which I will drive out before you. And the land was polluted, and I have recompensed [their] iniquity upon it, and the land is grieved with them that dwell upon it' [Lev. 18:24-25]." - Eusebius of Caesarea, Proof of the Gospel 4:10 (A.D. 319).

"“They who have committed sodomy with men or brutes, murderers, wizards, adulterers, and idolaters, have been thought worthy of the same punishment; therefore observe the same method with these which you do with others." - Basil, Letters 217:62 (A.D. 367).

"[The pagans] were addicted to the love of boys, and one of their wise men made a law that pederasty…should not be allowed to slaves, as if it was an honorable thing; and they had houses for this purpose, in which it was openly practiced. And if all that was done among them was related, it would be seen that they openly outraged nature, and there was none to restrain them… As for their passion for boys, whom they called their 'paedica,' it is not fit to be named." - John Chrysostom, Homilies on Titus 5 (A.D. 390]).

"[Certain men in church] come in gazing about at the beauty of women; others curious about the blooming youth of boys. After this, do you not marvel that [lightning] bolts are not launched [from heaven], and all these things are not plucked up from their foundations? For worthy both of thunderbolts and hell are the things that are done; but God, who is long-suffering, and of great mercy, forbears awhile his wrath, calling you to repentance and amendment." - John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew 3:3 (A.D. 391).

"All of these affections [in Rom. 1:26-27]… were vile, but chiefly the mad lust after males; for the soul is more the sufferer in sins, and more dishonored than the body in diseases." - John Chrysostom, Homilies on Romans 4 (A.D. 391).

"[The men] have done an insult to nature itself. And a yet more disgraceful thing than these is it, when even the women seek after these intercourses, who ought to have more shame than men." - John Chrysostom, Homilies on Romans 4 (A.D. 391).

"And sundry other books of the philosophers one may see full of this disease. But we do not therefore say that the thing was made lawful, but that they who received this law were pitiable, and objects for many tears. For these are treated in the same way as women that play the whore. Or rather their plight is more miserable. For in the case of the one the intercourse, even if lawless, is yet according to nature; but this is contrary both to law and nature. For even if there were no hell, and no punishment had been threatened, this would be worse than any punishment." - John Chrysostom, Homilies on Romans 4 (A.D. 391).

"[T]hose shameful acts against nature, such as were committed in Sodom, ought everywhere and always to be detested and punished. If all nations were to do such things, they would be held guilty of the same crime by the law of God, which has not made men so that they should use one another in this way." - Augustine, Confessions 3:8:15 (A.D. 400).

"[Christians] abhor all unlawful mixtures, and that which is practiced by some contrary to nature, as wicked and impious." - Apostolic Constitutions 6:11 (A.D. 400).

==Historical data concerning the history of homosexuality ==
The two most principal areas of historical inquiry which have been studied by historians in relation to ancient occurrences of homosexuality are [[Greek Homosexuality|Greek homosexuality]] and [[Roman Homosexuality|Roman homosexuality]] (see also [[Romans 1]]) but to which other societies, ancient to modern, are included.

It should be noted here that most of the research for the information referenced here comes through pro-homosexual writers, who sometimes interpret obscure or indefinite data as positively denoting homosexuality, while tending to render negative comments on homosexuality as being due to [[homophobia]]. And or as Boswell,<ref>Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe</ref> they may seek to contrive a history more usable to them,<ref>[http://www.leaderu.com/ftissues/ft9411/articles/darling.html Gay Marriage: Reimagining Church History Robin Darling Young]</ref> (which they are not alone in doing). Some assert that in some cases, pro-homosexual authors have extrapolated prevalent homosexuality out of little real evidence.<ref>http://homosexualityinancientgreece.wordpress.com/</ref> The inclusion of these sources is for reference purposes, and not as recommended reading. However, much clear data is provided which testifies to some degree of acceptance of homoeroticism (mostly pederastic), concomitant with idolatry. Biblically, this also included Israel at times when they forsook worship of "the living and true God" (1Thes. 1:9) of the Bible, who uniquely forbade such. A primary source on the subject of history and homosexuality, pro homosexual author Dr. David E. Greenberg, noted that, other than the Jews, "none of the archaic civilizations prohibited homosexuality per se",<ref>Greenberg, "The Construction of Homosexuality" p. 124</ref> (though he himself forced homosexuality into the story of [[David and Jonathan]]).

Dynes and Donaldson also note that the literary and archaeological records of Mediterranean societies have overall revealed that the ancient patterns of same-gender sexual behavior

:did not, for the most part, conform to the androphile model of modern industrial societies — a model that involves pairs of adults, both considered to be of the same gender, of roughly equal social status, and reciprocal and their behavior. Instead they generally adhered to gender-and-age differentiated patterns, Egypt being a partial exception. The best known types are the male temple prostitution of the near east and the institutionalized pederasty of Greece. <ref>Wayne R. Dynes, Stephen Donaldson Homosexuality in the ancient world'', p. 7</ref>

===Homosexuality in Greece===

The largest amount of material pertinent to the history of homosexuality is from Greece, from notable philosophers and writers such as Plato, Xenophon, Plutarch, and pseudo-Lucian, to plays by Aristophanes, to Greek artwork and vases. James B. De Young notes that homosexuality seems to have existed more widely among the ancient Greeks more than among any other ancient culture. The main form of this was pederasty, a custom that seems to have been practiced mostly among the upper classes, in which an older man (the ''erastest'') would make a young free boy (the ''eromenos'') his sex partner, and become his mentor. This was regulated by the State as an institution. However, this practice was usually a supplement to marriage,<ref>Dover, K.J., Greek Homosexuality (Harvard University Press, 1989, as summarized in "Homosexuality," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, August 2002)</ref> and thus is seen as being done by bisexuals. The practice of pederasty is mentioned in Homer's ''Illiad'', and is evidenced to have existed at least 4500 years ago in ancient Egypt.<ref>[http://books.google.com/books?id=ZXAVf8m_HKgC&pg=PA322&lpg=PA322&dq=Plato%27s+Laws+636c&source=bl&ots=ZjVFYZcdwc&sig=qh8nqrP0-_GCl1p49MgogdYs7E8&hl=en&ei=0sUeSqOxIqbWlQfpnPjPBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=19 Homosexuality, By James B. DeYoung p. 322]</ref>

{{Main|Greek Homosexuality}}

===Homosexuality in Rome===

After Greece, Rome is the next most significant entity in the history of homosexuality, and this cultural practice in both is understood by scholars as being what the apostle Paul is immediately referring to in condemning homosexuality in [[Romans 1.]]<ref>Homosexuality by James B. DeYoung, pp. 152-192ff</ref> Romans emperors were sometimes the most notorious examples of homosexuality. Edward Gibbon, in his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, wrote that "of the first fifteen emperors Claudius was the only one whose taste in love was entirely correct (not homo-sexual].<ref>Edward Gibbon. History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Vol. 1, London. 1898, p. 313. note 40</ref>

Juvenal (60-140 A.D.) and Martial (c. 40-102 A.D.) wrote of formal marriage unions between homosexuals. Some moral philosophers around the time of the apostle Paul questioned the merits of homosexual behaviors. Seneca (4 B.C-65 A.D.), a statesmen and tutor to the homosexual emperor Nero, reproved homosexual exploitation, such which which forced a slave to shave his beard, and dress and behave as a women,<ref>Moral epistles 47.7-8</ref> though Nero himself castrated a boy, and dressed him as female and married him, after killing his wife.<ref>Suetonius "Nero," XVIII-XVIX De Vita Caeasarum; Dio Cassius, LXII, xvii</ref> Dio Chrysostom (A.D. 40) likewise condemned such exploitation, and commended ''natural intercourse" and union of the male and female.''<ref>Discourse, 7.133, 135; 151-52; 21:6-10; 77/78.36</ref> Later, in 226 B.C., the Lex Scantinia (149 B.C.) is understood to have penalized homosexual practice.

According to psychiatrist and sexual historian Norman Sussman, "In contrast to the self-conscious and elaborate efforts of the Greeks to glorify and idealize homosexuality, the Romans simply accepted it as a matter of fact and as an inevitable part of human sexual life. Pederasty was just another sexual activity. Many of the most prominent men in Roman society were bisexual if not homosexual. Julius Caesar was called by his contemporaries every woman's man and every man's woman."<ref>Sussman p. 19</ref>

Many see Rome realizing a deleterious change in aspects of social morality beginning in the second century B.C, due to the influence and adaptation of "Asiatic luxury and Greek manners", including homosexuality, resulting in a "moral crises from which she never recovered (historian D. Earl)<ref>Young, Homosexuality, p. 153</ref>

Edward Gibbon, stated in his “History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” that marital faithfulness in the Roman Empire was virtually unknown, and that “The dignity of marriage was restored by the Christians.”<ref>[http://books.google.com/books?id=Ib7KaA717U0C&pg=RA1-PA478&lpg=RA1-PA478&dq=Gibbon,+dignity+of+marriage+was+restored+by+the+Christians.%E2%80%9D+p.&source=bl&ots=vLEsgM9AST&sig=Rw9ZVE-9MmInLQORPnl5NNQunxs&hl=en&ei=jbhGSrimC8b6tgeQ0NmMCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1 The history of the decline and fall of the Roman empire. p. 478, by Edward Gibbon, John Bagnell Bury]</ref>

===Homosexuality in China===

Art, poetry, historical and legal documents infer or attest to the practice of homosexuality in China (the type or degree of which is often somewhat dependent on the bias of the researcher, with most major works today being by by pro homosexual writers). The earliest references to such are from the period of the Hans Dynasty (Western: 202 B.C. to 9 A.D; Eastern: 25 to 22 A.D.) The ''Da-le-fu'' by Bo Xingjian (775-826) in an official ancient medical text ''History of the Former Hans Dynasty'' is seen by some to speak of homoeroticism, especially among emperors, in highly euphemistic language.

Heissig states that in the fourteenth century, the Chinese found homosexual Tibetan religious rites practiced at the court of a Mongol emperor.<ref>Walther Heissig, A Lost Civilization</ref>

Sex historian Arno Karlen reports that "two Arab travelers trekked through India and China m the ninth century, and in tneir chronicle said the Chinese were addicted to sodomy and even performed it in their shrines."<ref>Arno Kjrlen. Sexuality and Homosexuality. 1971, Norton, p. 229</ref>

During the Song dynasty (960-1279 A.D.) Tao Gu noted in his ''Records of the Extraordinary''

Everywhere people single out Nanhai for its 'Misty Moon Worships, a term referring the custom of esteeming lewdness. Nowadays those in the capital those who sell themselves number more than ten thousand . As to the men who offer their bodies for sale, then enter and leave place shamelessly. A law later enacted during Xhenghe reign (1111-1118) which punished male prostitutes with "one hundred strokes of a bamboo rod and a fine of fifty thousand in cash." However, it seems to have fallen into disuse over time.

Male prostitutes were known to have their own god, Tcheou--Wang.<ref>The Construction of Homosexuality, by David F. Greenberg, pp. 161-62</ref>

During the latter part of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 A.D.), Xie Zhaozhe, (1567-1624) - a contemporary of Shakespeare - recorded in his encyclopedia, the Wu za zu (Fivehold Miscellany),

In today's Peking, there are young boys singers who go to all the gentry's wine parties, and no matter how many official prohibitions there are, everybody uses them.

A fuller description of homosexual relations, and one that may be likened to [[same-sex marriage]], is found in the writings of Ming commentator Shen Defu (1578-1642), which tells of homosexual relationships which sometimes were part of the family order in the southern province of Fujian. He states that among all social ranks and physical attractiveness, Fujianese men found a same sex partner of their status, with the older becoming a "brother" to the younger (a custom termed ''nanfeng'') and paying for his later marriage to a female. "And that at the age of thirty they are still sleeping in the same bed like husband and wife." However, this is not known to have lasted more than twenty years, as they were to later marry a female.

In the latter part of the 16th century Roman Catholic missionaries commented on the perverse homosexual practices they saw in China. In a book published in 1569, Dominican Gaspar da Cruz attributed the [[earthquakes]] which had recently shaken China (its most fatal earthquake in history was in 1556[http://www.drgeorgepc.com/EarthquakesChina.html]) to being due to their indifference to [[sodomy]]. Shortly after his arrival in 1583, noted Jesuit astronomer Matteo Ricci found that male [[prostitution]] was lawful and practiced openly:

there are public streets full of boys dressed up like prostitutes. And there are people who buy these boys and teach them to play music, sing and dance. And than, gallantly dressed up and made up with rouge like women, these miserable men are initiated into this terrible vice.<ref>Spence (1984: p. 220)</ref>

He also wrote to his superior lamenting "the horrible sin to which everyone here is much given, and about which there seems to be no shame or impediment." No long before his death in 1610, he grieved that such was "neither forbidden by law nor thought to be illicit, nor even a cause of shame. It is spoken of in public, practiced everywhere, without there being anyone to prevent it."

An official Chinese historian named Mao Qiling (1623- 1716) wrote in a supplementary historical account regarding Emperor Wuzong (1491-1521), that had a passion of military uniforms and maneuvers, and broke precedent by sleeping at his new Leopard House, which accommodated his generals. He had so close friendship with one general in particular,that is recorded that they sleep and rose with together (tong wo-qi).

Open sexual expression was expanded under the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 A.D.), but increasing moral disorder, and invasion by warriors who captured Peking in 1644, establishing the Qing Dynasty, worked to somewhat morally awaken China, and resulted in laws for moral reform. Chinese conservatives labored to restore the more chaste values of orthodox Confucianism, while the Manchu conquerors sought to discourage fornication, including sexual offenses between males. The second Qing Emperor, Kang Xi, was an esteemed ruler who was hostile to pederasty and child prostitution, and declared that he himself was not waited on by "pretty boys."

In 1679 extensive legislation was written and confirmed in the Qing code of 1740, which made the abduction and rape of boys under twelve a capital crime, and penalized consensual sodomy with one hundred strokes of the heavy bamboo, and the wearing of the cangue (a flat wooden board) for one month. As in Biblical law, it appears that actually being caught in the act was required, and enforcement seems to have been rather selective. However, Kang Xi's own son and heir to the throne was found to be sexually involved with palace officials, and was executed. <ref>Homosexuality & Civilization, pp. 224-228,237-239, by Louis Crompton (pro homosexual)</ref>

Despite these reforms, later some Qing rulers are said to have engaged in homosexual relationships, and China saw a resurgence of homosexuality. Even during the reign of Kang Xi a contemporary writer wrote that "it is considered bad taste not to have singing boys around when inviting guests for dinner." Art began to abandoned its discrete nature in relation to sexual expression, and began to make the sexual act explicit.<ref> Passions of the Cut Sleeve, p. 146, by Bret Hinsch</ref>

Englishman John Barrow, secretary to the Macartney Embassy of 1793, and later the founder of the Royal Geographical Society, stated in ''Travels in China'' (1806),

Many of the first officers of state seemed to make no hesitation in publicly avowing [homosexuality]!"<ref<Sir John Barrow. Travels in China. T. Cadell & W. Davics (London), 1804 Cited In Karlen, op. cit . p. 229</ref>

Barrows also wrote that the exclusion of women had the effect of

"promoting that sort of connexion which, being one of the greatest violations of nature, ought to be considered among the first of moral crimes - a connexion that sinks a man many degrees below the brute. The commission of this detestable and unnatural act is attended to with so little sense of shame, or feeling of delicacy, that many first officers of state seemed to make no hesitation in publicly avowing it. Each of these officer is attended to by his pipe-bearer, who is generally a handsome boy, from fourteen to eighteen years of age, and is always well dressed.<ref>Hinsch, p. 141</ref>

In Judaism's Sexual Revolution: Why Judaism Rejected Homosexuality, Dennis Prager also notes that the low state of women has been linked to widespread homosexuality, and writes that a French physician reported from China in the nineteenth century that, "Chinese women were such docile, homebound dullards that the men, like those of ancient Greece, sought courtesans and boys."

In contrast, a commentator of Napoleonic France provided commendation for such.<ref>Crompton, pp. 239-240</ref>

Sir Richard Burton summed up the Chinese in these words: "their systematic bestiality with ducks, goats and other animals is equaled only by their pederasty."<ref>Sir Richard Burton, The Erotic Traveler, 1967. Norton. Cited in Karlen p. 230</ref>

Eberhardt understands that "Chinese Buddhism considered homosexuality to be a minor transgression." <ref>Wolfram Eberhardt, Guilt and Sin in Traditional China. 1967. University of California, pp. 29-32. Cited in Greenberg, p. 26l. note 101</ref>

A western visitor to the port city of Tianjin estimated that there were approximately eight hundred boys in its thirty-five brothels, trained for pederastic prostitution.<ref>Hinsch, p. 141</ref>

However, homoeroticism apparently was not a religious part of Chinese folk religion, as "the Chinese were shocked and indignant at the homoerotic Tibetan rites practiced at the court of Shun-Ti Heissig, the last Mongul emperor in the fourteenth century."<ref>1996; pp. 52-54, referenced by Greenberg, p. 161</ref>

During the Chinese cultural revolution (1966 - 76), government considered homosexuality to be a social offense or a form of mental illness, and homosexuality is said to been punished more than in all previous times.

In 1989 the "Chinese Classification and Diagnostic Criteria of Mental Disorders", released by the Chinese Psychiatric Association, defined homosexuality as a "psychiatric disorder of sexuality", providing more tolerance toward this class of sin.<ref>Shanghai Star October 4, 2002</ref>

===Homosexuality in Japan===

Greenberg understands that during the feudal age in Japan, homosexuality flourished among military aristocracy, "with samurai sometimes fighting duels on behalf of their lovers",<ref>Greenberg, p 260</ref> and that Japanese Buddhism appears to have disregarded homosexuality.<ref>Greenberg, p. 261, note 101</ref>

[[Buddhist]] [[monks]] are said to not have allowed intercourse with women, though "male partners were not explicitly prohibited, and that many monks took youthful male lovers, a practice that was considered quite acceptable..." "Legal codes of the period do not even mention homosexuality." <ref>Greenberg, p. 261</ref>

===Homosexuality among the Celts===

[[Aristotle]] stated that the Celts esteemed homosexuality."<ref>Politics 2 9 7 Cited in Greenberg, p 111</ref> In addition, Diodorus Siculus wrote in the first century B.C., "The men are much keener on their own sex; they lie around on animal skins and enjoy themselves, with a lover on each side. Furthermore, this isn't looked down on, or regarded in any way disgraceful."<ref>Cited in Gerhard Herm. The Celts. St Martin's. 1977. p 58.</ref>

===Homosexuality among the America Indians===

Pre-Columbian Americas: In North America, the Spanish and French explorers and missionaries who visited the New World quickly became aware of widespread Indian transvestism (men dressing as women) and homosexuality. Writing in 1776, Father Charlevoix, a Jesuit priest, found the Iroquois to have “an excess of effeminacy and lewdness. There are men unashamed to wear women’s clothing and to practice all the occupations of women, from which follows corruption that I cannot express. They pretend that its usage comes from their religion. These effeminates never marry and abandon themselves to the most infamous passions.”

Greenberg reports that there was widespread male homosexuality among the Mayans in Central America: “A strong homosexual component pervades close friendships of young married Mayan men as well as bachelors in southern Mexico and among Guatemalan Indians.”

Among the Aztecs, “Sodomy was virtually universal, involving even children as young as six. Cortez also found sodomy to be widespread among the Aztecs, and admonished them to give it up – along with human sacrifice and cannibalism. One of the Aztec gods, Xochipili, was the patron of male homosexuality and male prostitution.”<ref>[http://vesler.blogspot.com/2006/04/why-judaism-rejected-homos_114634268752564895.html Why Judaism Rejected Homosexuality -- Part 2, referencing Greenberg]</ref>

===Homosexuality in ancient Mesopotamia===

Certain other ancient societies provide some evidence in regards to the history of homosexuality. Gordon J Wenham in "The Old Testament Attitude to Homosexuality" refers to ''Homosexualität'' Reallexicon der Assyriologie (4. 559-68) as a prime source, and states,

From iconographic evidence dating from 3000 BC to the Christian era it is clear that homosexual practice was an accepted part of the Mesopotamian scene. This conclusion is confirmed by many literary and legal texts in which homosexual activity is mentioned.<ref>[http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/article_attitude_wenham.html Wenham, The Old Testament Attitude to Homosexuality, p. 360]</ref>

Within the ''Middle Assyrian Laws'' (c. 1450-1250 B.C.) does seem to provide one or two relevant laws. MAL 19 provides a penalty for false accusation of passive homosexuality, requiring the false witness to be beaten, fined and suffer a mark of shame on him.<ref>So G. Cardascia, Les lois assyriennes (du Cerf [1969]), p. 130.</ref>

MAL 20 is more specific, "If a man has lain with his male friend and a charge is brought and proved against him, the same thing shall be done to him and he shall be made a eunuch."<ref>H.W.F Saggs, The Greatest That was Babylon, (New York: Hawthorn, 1962), p. 212</ref>

Wenham comments,

This is what Cardascia, Les lois assyriennes, 134-35 suggests. Bottero and Petschow in Reallexicon der Assyriologie 4, 462 are more dogmatic. 'The verb niku/ náku ... implies a certain constraint on the part of the protagonist. Its literal translation would be "to do violence to" and almost "violate". It is precisely because the victim submits to violence that obliges its author to submit in his turn to violence himself.''<ref>Wenham, footnote #8</ref> Unlike in the Bible where both parties are guilty and are to be punished, (Lv. 18:22; 20:13) here only the active male partner is punished.

He further states,

Nor were homosexuals shut away in Mesopotamia. There were homosexual cult prostitutes, who took part in public processions, singing, dancing, wearing costumes, sometimes wearing women's clothes and carrying female symbols, even at times pretending to give birth...Sometimes they are called 'dogs'. 'It therefore appears that these types of person, as in other places and periods including our own, formed a shady sub-culture where all sorts of ambiguities, mixtures and transformations were possible.<ref>ibid. Wenham</ref>

Greenberg states that in Mesopotamiam Hammurabi, the author of the famous legal code bearing his name, had male lovers (Greenberg, p. 126)

In addition, it is understood that Assyrian men prayed for divine blessing on homosexual love.<ref>[Reallexicon der Assyriologie p. 465</ref> This is seen to stand in contrast to the Bible, which nowhere offers sanction for homoeroticism, in contrast to its explicit Divine blessing on heterosexual relations in marriage. The Bible is also seen to separately forbid homosexual activity near the Temple, (Dt. 23:17,18) this likely being homosexual prostitutes, called ''dogs''.

The Reallexicon der Assyriologie concludes:

Homosexuality in itself is thus nowhere condemned as licentiousness, as immorality, as social disorder, or as transgressing any human or divine law. Anyone could practise it freely, just as anyone could visit a prostitute, provided it was done without violence and without compulsion, and preferably as far as taking the passive role was concerned, with specialists.'' <ref>Reallexicon der Assyriologie pp. 4, 467, 68</ref>

The Bible states that because of such immorality the Lord drove out the people whose land Israel possessed. (Dt. 9:3-5; 18:12)

Among the Hittites, Law 189 states, ''If a man violates his daughter it is a capital crime. If a man violates his son, it is a capital crime''. However, the violation here may be more due to its incestuous nature, than the homosexual aspect.<ref> H. A. Hoffner, 'Incest, Sodomy, and Bestiality in the Ancient Near East' in (Orient and Occident: Essays in Honor of C. H. Gordon, Neukirchen, Neukirchener Verlag [1973]), 83</ref>

===Homosexuality among the Jews===

As [[Leviticus 18]] and other texts evidence, homosexuality was forbidden among the Jews, with violation being a capital offense. In providing Israel with a superior moral standard, as well in other areas, God invoked the example of immoral nations, fitted for destruction, as manifesting the behavior which Israel was ''not'' to follow. This means of contrast, which does not limit the forbidden behavior to only that culture, is seen in the [[New Testament]] as well. (Rm. 1:19-32; Eph. 5:1-7) 1Pt. 4:2-4)

Israel was established as an overall victorious nation as they overall followed God, as He promised. (Dt. 28) However, when Israel backslid into idolatry then homosexuality was seen among them, though it is not evidenced to have degenerated past the stage of idolatrous ceremony, (Dt. 23:17,18) into pederasty and household homoeroticism. What was sanctioned by the temple set the moral example for the rest of the nation, and when Israel responded to the chastening of God under good kings, then cultic prostitutes were driven out of the land. (1Kg. 14:24; 15:12; 22:46; 2Kg. 23:7)

The terrible chastisements Israel suffered, after being warned by God for hundreds of years to return to obedient faith, appears to have cured them from outward idolatry, and homosexuality in any form. The author of the Syballine Oracles, thought to be an Egyptian Jew (approx. 163 - 45 B.C.), compared Jews to the other nations, stating,

The Jews "are mindful of holy wedlock, and they do not engage in impious intercourse with male children, as do Phoenicians, Egyptians, and Romans, specious Greece and many nations of others, Persians and Galatians and all Asia."<ref>Greenberg, p. 200, footnote 88</ref>

In contemporary times, according to sex researcher sex historian Arno Karlen [[Alfred Kinsey]] stated that "homosexuality was phenomenally rare among Orthodox Jews" (even though his flawed research otherwise exaggerated the number of homosexuals).

===Homosexuality in Egypt===

The [[Old Testament]] of the Bible mentions Egypt as one of the nations exampling sins which Israel is to avoid, including homosexuality. (Lv. 18:3) While no legal texts are yet possessed, other stories testify of homosexual acts and attitudes.

The earliest and longest version of the Contendings of Horus and Seth (Greek transliterations, or Heru and Set from Egyptian), dated c. 1160 B.C., late in the 20th Dynasty in the New Kingdom, with elements of religious mythology which are likely older, tells of Set, who is before manifested as heterosexual, perpetrating a homosexual act upon Horus. This is seen as shameful by Ruler Ennead. Seth is also said to have become pregnant by eating lettuce with the semen of Horus on it, placed there by his mother.<ref>The Contendings of Horus and Seth, by Khenmetaset and Marie Parsons</ref> An earlier version (est. 2,000 B.C.) is similar.<ref>from Kahun, from Griffith, F., Hieratic Papyri from Kahun and Gurob, 1908</ref> Historians see this indicating that to be anally penetrated was looked upon as humiliating and shameful.<ref>Montserrat, 1996, p. 71; Bullough, p. 65.</ref>

The Egyptian Book of the Dead (c. 14.50 century B.C.) is the name given by Egyptologists to a collection of mortuary texts written on sheets of papyrus covered with magical texts and accompanying illustrations. The earliest record of Book of the Dead is dated from approx. 1650-1550 B.C., though it is thought that some of the spells originated in the Pyramid Texts carved more than 1000 years earlier.<ref>[http://www.touregypt.net/boda.htm] The Book of the Dead, An Introduction</ref><ref>[http://www.egyptologyonline.com/book_of_the_dead.htm The book of the dead, EGYPTOLOGY ONLINE]</ref> In chapter 125 are two sets of “negative confessions”, in which the deceased was to testify before Osiris and forty-two other gods of his righteousness and worthiness of eternal life. In the first set of declarations (before Osiris) is the statement (as translated), ''I have not penetrated the penetrater of a penetrater''<ref>[Book of the Dead Chapter 125A http://www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk/literature/religious/bd125a.html]</ref>, while in the second set (before the 42 judges) it is declared (as translated), ''I have committed no acts of impurity nor have I had sexual intercourse with a man.''<ref>[The Book of the Dead, chapter 125, by Richard Hooker http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/EGYPT/BOD125.HTM]</ref>

Part of an incomplete text dating from approximately 2200 B.C. has been termed, ''Neferkare’s Affair with General Sisene.'' It tells of a common man discovering that King Neferkare (Pepi 2) was making regular nightly visit to a man living without a wife,<ref>Egyptian Myth: A Very Short Introduction, by Geraldine Pinch</ref> and which may imply a homosexual affair as part of royal corruption.<ref>Egyptologist J. Gywn Griffths</ref>

The Teaching of Vizier Ptahhotep (c. 2200 B.C.), has a difficult to translate text (32) which may read, ''Do not copulate with a woman-boy,for You know that one will fight against the water upon her heart.''<ref>The Maxims of Good Discourse, by vizier Ptahhotep</ref>

Later, a homosexual liaison is described between the Governor of Egypt C. Vibius Maximus (103-107 A. D.) and a 17 year old ''still beardless...and handsome youth'' who ate and traveled with him rather than attending school and the gymnasium. His sexual relations with the politician were known, and the young man is described as exhibiting an attitude often seen in contemporary society today:

Once accustomed to this shame this handsome and rich young youth gave himself airs and became so impudent..in the presence of everyone, and laughed long and freely in the middle of the clients.

Partly because of this conduct the Governor incurred ''damnatio memoriaem'', with his name being removed from public documents.<ref>R. Syme, C. Vibius Maximus, Prefect of Egypt, Historia 6 (1957), p. 184</ref><ref>After Paul left Corinth, by Bruce W. Winter, p. 114</ref>

===Homosexuality in the Arab and Islamic worlds===

Greenberg contends that male homosexuality has been "pervasive and highly visible" in the Arab and Islamic worlds.<ref>Greenberg, p. 175</ref>

A Dutch traveler among the Moguls (Muslims who ruled in India), wrote that male homosexuality "is not only universal in practice among them, but extends to a bestial communication with brutes, and in particular with sheep."<ref>Johan Stavorinus, Voyages to the East Indies, G G. Robinson (London), 1798, pp. 453-57. Cited in Grcenberg, p. 180.</ref>

John Chardin, a visitor to Persia the late seventeenth century, reported that he had found "numerous houses of male prostitution, but none offering females;" and "some of the greatest Persian love poetry is written to boys."<ref>Greenberg , p. 180</ref>

Louis Dupree, perhaps the West's leading scholar on Afghanistan, wrote in his 1973 book on Afghanistan chat male homosexuality remains common there. (Louis Dupree, Afghani- stan, Princeton University, 1973, p. 198.)

Khaled El-Rouayheb in ''Before homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic world'', 1500-1800" states that "Arabic literature of the Ottoman period (1516-1798) is replete with causal and sometimes sympathetic references to homosexual love", most of it pederastic in content, such as between poets and young boys.

In his ''Music from a Distant Drum'', Bernard Lewis writes that

Homosexuality is condemned and forbidden by the holy law of Islam, but there are times and places in Islamic history when the ban on homosexual love seems no stronger than the ban on adultery in, say, Renaissance Italy or seventeenth century France. Some [of the Arabic, Persian and Turkish] poems are openly homosexual; some poets, in their collected poems, even have separate sections for for love poems addressed to males and females.

In ''The Venture of Islam'' author Marshal Hodegson wrote that in medieval Islamic civilization,

despite strong Shari disapproval, the sexual relations of a mature man with a subordinate youth were so readily accepted in middle class circles that there was little or no efforts to conceal their existence. The fashion entered poetry, especially the Persians.

Records from European travelers attest to the prevalence such, with the content of some revealing the distinction in cultural attitudes. One example is from Englishman Joesph Pitts, a sailor who was captured and sold into slavery at Algiers in 1678 but escaped fifteen years later. He later stated,

The horrible sin of Sodomy is so far from being punish'd among them, that it is part of their ordinary Discourse to boast of their detestable Actions of that kind. 'Tis common for Men there to fall in love with Boys, as 'tis here in England to be in love with Women.

The French traveler C. S. Sonnini, after visiting Egypt between 1777 and 1780, similary noted,

The passion contrary to nature...the inconceivable appetite which dishonored the Greek and Persians of antiquity, constitute the delight, or, to use a juster term, the infamy of the Egyptians. It is not for the women that that their amorous ditties are composed: it is not on them that tender caresses are lavished; far different objects inflame them.

Affirming this contrast, Muslim travelers who "rediscovered Europe" in the first half of the 1800's found it notable that the European men were ''not'' found courting or eulogizing male youth.

Moroccan scholar Muhammad Al-Saffar, who visited Paris in 1845-46, recorded,

Flirtation, romance, and courtship for them take place only with women, for they are not inclined to boys or young men. Rather, that is extremely disgraceful to them.

Likewise, El-Rouayheb also writes that Egyptian scholar Rifa'ah Rafi' al-Tahtaw who was in Paris between 1826 and 1831, noted,

Amongst the laudable traits of their character, similar really to those of the Bedouin, is their not being inclined to toward loving male youths and eulogizing them in poetry, for this is something unmentionable for them and contrary to their nature and morals. One of the positive aspects of their language and poetry is that it does not permit the saying of love poetry of someone of the same sex.<ref>Before homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic world, 1500-1800,
by Khaled El-Rouayheb, pp. 1-3</ref>

===Homosexuality in England===

Homosexuality was known to occur to certain degrees in [[England]]. Saint Boniface wrote in 744 that the people of England "have been leading a shameful life, despising lawful marriages, committing adultery and lusting after the fashion of cutlic people of Sodom. "<ref>Peter Coleman. Christian Attitudes to Homosexuality, 1980, SPCK (London), p 131 Cited in Greenberg, p. 250</ref> Yet especially in latter times England is evidenced to possesses a healthy abhorrence of homosexuality, with both laws and the public attitude being contrary to it.<ref>Rictor Norton (Ed.), Homosexuality in Eighteenth-Century England: A Sourcebook. Updated 31 May 2009</ref>

Sodomy (buggery) was described as "a sin against nature" and was prohibited as a capital offense along with bestiality from 1533 until 1861, which saw the penalty reduced to 10 years to life in prison. Later legislation broadened the description while lessening the penalty.<ref>History Of Homosexuality In Europe, 1919-1939. pp. 305-06, by Florence Tamagne (X rated, w/ pro homosexual bias)</ref>

Prior to this a number of medieval legal sources do discuss "sodomy."<ref>The Law in England, www.fordham.edu</ref>

A German traveler wrote in 1768,

The English women are so handsome, and the desire to please them, and to obtain their favours, is so ardent and so general, that it is not in the least surprising, that those islanders should hold a certain unnatural crime in the utmost abhorrence. They speak in no part of the world with so much horror of this infamous passion, as in England. The punishment by law is imprisonment, and the pillory. It is very uncommon to see a person convicted, and punished for this crime; not on account of the paucity of the numbers charged with perpetrating it, but because they never yield to such a brutal appetite but with the utmost precaution.<ref>M. D’Archenholz, A Picture of England, 2 vols, London, 1789, vol. 2, pp. 102-4.</ref><ref>Rictor Norton (Ed.), "A Picture of England, 1789," Homosexuality in Eighteenth-Century England: A Sourcebook. 6 January 2005</ref>

The Societies for Reformation of Manners was founded in 1690, and by 1701 there were about twenty such Societies. They purposed to clean up public vice, particularly prostitution. Eight or nine members of the society worked undercover to observe gay cruising areas and attract solicitation. From 1707 through 1709, one cleric, "Reverend Bray," directed several raids, in affiliation with Constables who were also members of the Societies. By their annual meeting in 1710 they were able to attest that "our streets have been very much cleansed from the lewd night-walkers and most detestable sodomites."<ref>Victor Norton, Ed., "The Tryal and Conviction of Several Reputed Sodomites, 1707", Homosexuality in Eighteenth-Century England: A Sourcebook. 1 December 1999, updated 15 June 2008</ref>

Attitudes regarding homosexuality varied throughout the history of England, depending on its spiritual condition, and while sodomy between men remained unlawful until the 1930's, increased tolerance toward homosexuality was seen in post [[World War 1]] The precursor to modern sexual revolution is understood by some to have begun among an intellectual class in England termed the ''Neo-Pagans'', whose lifestyle was one of worship of the body, freedom of sexual expression, nudism, etc.<ref>Tamagne</ref> This lifestyle was one which would later characterize the sexual revolution of the 60's in the West. As seen in Romans 1:25, referring to "those who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen", this resulted in a modern prevalence of [[homosexuality]] in the [[United States]] and England, with its resultant deleterious effects.

==Lesbianism==

Lesbianism was termed ''lesbian passion'' by the Greeks, being derived from the name of the Greek island Lesbos, after its female poet Sappho wrote about love between women.<ref>www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Cities/Lesbos.html</ref> The term sapphism also came to describe traditional sex practices among women through the ages.<ref>Andre, 2003</ref> However, this is not seen as obtaining the same-sex social sanction as pederasty. Nor does Greek mythology offers legends of the goddesses which parallel the homosexual acts seen as having occurred between male Greek gods.

In Lucian's Amores 28, the Greek character Charicles states that it would be better for a women to invade the dominion of male wantonness (homosexuality) than for men to become effeminate, and also warns of lesbianism: ''If you concede homosexual love to males, you must in justice grant the same to females; you will have to sanction carnal intercourse between them; monstrous instruments of lust will have to be permitted, in order that their sexual congress may be carried out; that obscene vocable, tribad, which so rarely offends our ears--I blush to utter it--will become rampant, and Philænis will spread androgynous orgies throughout our harems.'' <ref>[http://books.google.com/books?id=sclZnr2SUIgC&pg=PA113&lpg=PA113&dq=Amores+of+Lucian,+Charicles&source=bl&ots=wZNTllKdeA&sig=vh6J9B9uPzFXES6yaoyAYfwPGOg&hl=en&ei=LxYfStb2IsXMlQeZuqXFBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=25#PPA113,M1 After Paul left Corinth, by Bruce W. Winter]</ref>

[Romans 1]] of the New Testament clearly refers to lesbianism, as ''even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature'', as a result of rejecting the creational revelation given them.

==Ancient laws against homosexual acts==

Greek laws existed which regulated pederasty, while later Romans laws went further in restricting it. Although there is some debate among scholars, Roman literature of the republic and early empire may indicate that men who engaged in consensual homosexual relations were often mocked as effeminate, but such was not illegal. Laws instituted in the later Roman Empire would change explicitly outlaw such.

On Dec 16, 342 A.D., Constantius and Constans issued a legal decision which was included in the later Theodosian Code:

Cod.Theod. IX. Viii. 3: (Cod. Justin IX.ix.31):

''When a man marries in the manner of a woman, a woman about to renounce men {quum vir nubit in feminam viris porrecturam), what does he wish, when sex has lost all its significance; when the crime is one which it is not profitable to know; when Venus is changed to another form; when love is sought and not found? We order the statutes to arise, the laws to be armed with an avenging sword, that those infamous persons who are now, or who hereafter may be, guilty may be subjected to exquisite punishment.''

The meaning of this is somewhat obscure, more explicit is the law issued by Valentinian II, Theodoisus and Arcadius on Aug 6, 390, and which also survives in the Theodosian Code:

Cod.Theod. IX. Vii. 6:

''All persons who have the shameful custom of condemning a man's body, acting the part of a woman's to the sufferance of alien sex (for they appear not to be different from women), shall expiate a crime of this kind in avenging flames in the sight of the people.''

During the Roman Imperial period the Lex Julia de adulteris (originally of c. 17 B.C.) was expanded by legal commentators to include first offenses against boys, and possibly all male homosexual acts. Under Justinian, the Eastern Roman Emperor from 527 A.D. to his death, historical accounts in Procopius and Malalas indicate that there was punishment of some homosexuals. In addition, under Justinian's legislative activity there was the strict Institutes of the Corpus Juris Civilis (effective Dec 30, 533), which is understood by some to sum up the legal opinons:<ref>Paul Halsall, Justinian I: Novel 77 [538] and Novel 141 [544 CE]</ref>

Institutes IV. xviii .4:

''In criminal cases public prosecutions take place under various statutes, including the Lex Julia de adulteris, "…which punishes with death (gladio), not only those who violate the marriages of others, but also those who dare to commit acts of vile lust with [other] men (qui cim masculis nefandum libidinem exercere audent)."

More significantly, two "Novels" by Justinian issued were directed against homosexual activity:

NOVEL 77 [358 CE] (extract)

…since certain men, seized by diabolical incitement practice among themselves the most disgraceful lusts, and act contrary to nature: we enjoin them to take to heart the fear of God and the judgment to come, and to abstain from suchlike diabolical and unlawful lusts, so that they may not be visited by the just wrath of God on account of these impious acts, with the result that cities perish with all their inhabitants. For we are taught by the Holy Scriptures that because of like impious conduct cities have indeed perish, together with all the men in them.<ref>[trans. in Derrick Sherwin Bailey, Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition, (London: Longmans, Green, 1955), 73-74]</ref>

NOVEL 141 [344 CE]

#1: For, instructed by the Holy Scriptures, we know that God brought a just judgment upon those who lived in Sodom, on account of this very madness of intercourse, so that to this very day that lands burns with inextinguishable fire. By this God teaches us, in order that by means of legislation we may avert such an untoward fate. Again, we know what the blessed Apostle says about such things, and what laws our state enacts. Wherefore it behoves all who desire to fear God to abstain from conduct so base and criminal that we do not find it committed even by brute beasts. Let those who have not taken part in such doings continue to refrain in the future. But as for those who have been consumed by this kind of disease, let them not only cease to sin in the future, but let them alos duly do penance, and fall down before God and renounce their plague [in confession] to the blessed Patriarch; let them understand the reason for this charge, and, as it is written, bring forth the fruits of repentance. So may God the merciful, in abundance of pity, deem us worthy of his blessing, that we may all give thanks to him for the salvation of the penitents, who we have now bidden [to submit themselves] in order that the magistrates too may follow up our action, [thus] reconciling to themselves God who is justly angry with us.

Late Roman pagan lawyers had already applied the Lex Julia to homosexual acts when Christian emperors enacted laws and issued exhortations against homosexuals, four in a two-hundred year period, with the two by Justinian (527-565) being as much concerned with penance as penalty.<ref>Bailey, pp. 79-81</ref>

Under Roman Emperor Charles V, (A.D. 1539), Lex Carolina (Die peinliche Halsgerichtsordnung) was promulgated:

§116 Punishment of the Unchastity that occurs against Nature.

Moreover, if a human being commits unchastity with an animal, [or] a man with a man, [or] a woman with a woman, they have forfeited life, and, according to the common custom, they shall be banished from life unto death by fire.

==History of homosexuality and myths==

Myths play a substantial part in the study of the history of homosexuality, which is seen by many among mythological Greek gods (similar Romans gods had Latin names<ref>[http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/mythology/myths.html Roman and greek mythology of gods and goddesses]</ref><ref>[http://www.americanbible.org/absport/news/item.php?id=80 Greek and Roman Gods and Goddesses]</ref><ref>http://messagenet.com/myths/immortals.html</ref>). Instances and possibilities include

*Zeus and Ganymede,
*Apollo and Hyacinthus,
*Achilles and Patroclus,
*Heracles (or Hercules) and Hylas,
*Narcissus and Ameinias.
*Other gods who to homosexual affairs are attributed include Orpheus ("the first man to love boys"), Boreas (god of the North Wind) and Thamyris.<ref>[http://everything2.com/title/Homosexuals%2520of%2520Greek%2520Mythology Homosexuals of Greek Mythology]</ref>

==Non-uniform occurrence==

An notable interesting aspect in regards to the history of homosexuality is that it has been rare in a number of cultures or been absent in some cultures. Dr. Neil Whitehead and Briar Whitehead state regarding various cultures: "If [[homosexuality]] were significantly influenced by [[gene]]s, it would appear in every culture, but in twenty-nine of seventy-nine cultures surveyed by Ford and Beach in 1952, homosexuality was rare or absent."<ref>[http://www.mygenes.co.nz/download.htm My Genes Made Me Do it - a scientific look at sexual orientation by Dr Neil Whitehead and Briar Whitehead - Chapter 6]</ref>

==Modern prevalence and influence==

The history of homosexuality in modern times is one which evidences a growth from that which is shameful to mainstream acceptance in the West. This change may be seen as a product of the [[sexual revolution]] beginning in the 1960's, which saw widespread rebellion toward moral authority, and against prohibitions against illicit sex in particular. Gay and lesbian rights groups had existed before and grown during that time, but the rebellion which marked that era was distinctly manifested by homosexuals on June 28, 1969 in the [[Stonewall Riots]] which occurred in Greenwich Village, injuring police and bystanders. This is seen as marking the beginning of the modern organizing of gay and lesbian groups, and the promotion of what [[conservatives]] term the [[homosexual agenda]]. Gay Democratic clubs began in every major city, and one fourth of all college campuses had gay and lesbian groups.<ref>(Shilts, 1993, ch.28</ref>. The [[American Psychiatric Association]] was pressured to removed homosexuality from its official listing of mental disorders, and to treat it as an optional lifestyle. It is contended by some that such changes were due to pressure from the homosexual lobby, which Nicholas Cummings, former president of the APA, states, "is very strong in the APA."<ref>http://www.narth.com/docs/study.html</ref><ref>[http://www.narth.com/docs/insiders.html Psychology Losing Scientific Credibility, Say APA Insiders]</ref>

Since Stonewall, the visibility of gays and lesbians has become an increasing aspect of American life, despite the fact that the [[homosexual lifestyle]] was the primary cause of the spread of [[AIDS]], which has resulted in the death of over a half million Americans, and many more world wide.<ref>[http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5521a1.htm Twenty-Five Years of HIV/AIDS --- United States, 1981--2006</ref><ref>[http://www.avert.org/aroundworld.htm AIDS around the world]</ref> In addition to the decreased moral influence by Christians or others, and the increase in erotic sensuality overall, many credit effective homosexual public relations strategy for the increasing acceptance of homosexuality.<ref>[http://books.google.com/books?id=cbfVg_1qhe0C&pg=PP1&lpg=PP1&dq=David+W.+Virtue+scots+college&source=bl&ots=aDW7a615Gn&sig=Y1cLsx5sCQTgUUDJ88b5AKPRkNg&hl=en&ei=8skISpP1AcGktgfi2PzsCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#PPR14,M1 Homosexuality, by F. Earle Fox, David W. Virtue]</ref>Instrumental in this strategy were Harvard trained marketing experts and social scientists Marshall Kirk (1957 - 2005) and Hunter Madsen, who advocated avoiding portraying gays as aggressive challengers, but as victims, while making those who opposed them as evil persecutors.<ref>http://www.leaderu.com/socialsciences/sellinghomosexuality.html http://www.article8.org/docs/gay_strategies/after_the_ball.htm </ref><ref>After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90’s, p. 152-153 (1989, Doubleday/Bantam)</ref> The widespread use of the term [[homophobia]] against any who oppose homosexuality has been effective in the latter effort.

Various estimates are given for the percentage of homosexuals (though who sexually desire their same genders over the opposite). The early figure of 10% as based upon a report by Alfred E. Kinsey, though often quoted, is not generally considered accurate by profession researchers, due to serious flaws (and even criminal practices) in his studies.<ref>such as 25 percent of his information coming from present or former prison inmates, many of whom were sex offenders, while a additional 5 percent were male prostitutes: Kinsey, Sex and Fraud: The Indoctrination of a People, Judith A. Reisman, Ph.D. and Edward W. Eichel</ref> A more recent national study found that 1.51% of total U.S. population identified themselves as gay, lesbian or bisexual.<ref>National study published in Laumann, et al., The Social Organization of Sex: Sexual Practices in the United States(1994), cited in Amicus Curiae in support of petitioners. Lawrence and Garner v. State of Texas, No. 02-102 (U.S. March 26, 2003), pg. 16.</ref> Various sources compiled by Thomas E.Schmidt resulted in a figure of 1.8% of the U.S. population being gay or lesbian.<ref>Straight & Narrow: Compassion & Clarity in the Homosexuality Debate, pg. 102-103. [Original sources: P. Painton, "The Shrinking Ten Percent," Time, April 26, 1993, pp. 27-29; P. Rogers, "How Many Gays Are There?" Newsweek, February 15, 1993, pg. 46</ref> With the promotion of homosexuality in schools and society, these figures are expected to rise.<ref>www.massresistance.org</ref>

==See also==
*[[Homosexuality and English Speaking Countries]]
*[[Homosexuality in other cultures]]
==References==
{{reflist|2}}
[[Category:Homosexuality]]
[[Category:History]]