Expunged History

School of Caravaggio, Private Collection
Many of the great Greek myths have been seriously eroded of their same sex relationships, according to Andrew Calimach the author of "Lover's Legends, The Gay Greek Myths. Calimach states: "Nine previously suppressed Greek myths about Hercules, Narcissus, Zeus and others reveal a new side to characters we thought familiar, and reflect a nuanced morality integrating spirituality and male love. " You may find his book at www.haidukpress.com. The Christian Church has suppressed much of the artwork and writings of the classical world as it attempts to eradicate the historical context of same sex relationships because of it's views of what is moral. The Vatican Museum reportedly has a large collection of these works which are hidden from view not only from the general public but from scholarly research as well. Just within the last few years a newly discovered fresco at Pompeii showing women together in same sex acts was strongly discouraged from being made public by the Vatican. This pressure upon the secular scientific community is an act of censorship that wrongfully attempts to prohibit archaeological discovery from being documented for the public.. Why censor this material? The suppression of same sex history supports the current notion of the far right that the homosexual community is without 'tradition'. Tradition is only slightly less significant as an authority for their anti-gay views than dogma. In fact the Vatican holds up tradition in its argument that marriage may only be between a man and a woman. It is rather like the eighteenth century notion which sought to place erotic literature and art into private collections to be viewed and accessed only by those who were deemed suitably educated. Suitably educated meaning adherence to the Christian norms of condemnation of overt sexuality, whether heterosexual or homosexual. Our historical context, unsuppressed, is then even more dangerous to the neo-conservative. The the notion that their is a tradition, a tradition supported more and more by historical research, that homosexuals have had loving, committed and long term relationships every bit as passionate and complex as any opposite sex commitments, for as long a time as opposite sex commitments, is to crush a central driving force of the neo-cons rational for depriving us of marriage and of social and political equality.


"Or they might watch the quoit-pitchers, intent
On either side, pitying the sad death
Of Hyacinthus, when the cruel breath
Of Zephyr slew him; Zephyr penitent,
Who now ere Phoebus mounts the firmament,
Fondles the flower amid the sobbing rain."

from Endymion, Keats