Walter Breen

Walter Henry Breen, (1928? 1930-1993) writer, numismatist and homosexual activist. A hero of the LGBT movement, he is regarded as a "gay icon" and celebrity. His book Greek Love, published in 1964 under the pseudonym J. Z. Eglinton, advocated and glorified homosexual relations between men and boys. Breen objected to the "adultification" of homosexuality in 20th-century definitions and maintained (correctly) that historically, homosexual relations had always been between a man and a much younger boy. Though married to Marion Zimmer Bradley he was a lifelong pedophile who raped both of his own children, a son and a daughter, the latter when she was aged five. He also raped, assaulted and molested many other children, mainly boys. Breen used drugs and money to obtain children, and in one case tried to adopt one of his victims.

In 1989 his daughter Moira Greyland Peat, reported him to the police to stop him molesting a boy aged eleven. He was put on probation, prompting many more criminal charges of the same sort. His own copious diaries revealed 40 years of raping boys and multiple prosecutions followed. In court, Breen argued with the judge that molesting boys was right, and held to the beliefs he had expressed in Greek Love. He was jailed for ten years in 1992, but died of cancer 27 April 1993 in San Chino Penitentiary.

Breen remembered being molested himself by a priest when aged about eight and his life history provides an example of the classic pattern of child sex abuse > homosexuality > child sex abuse.