Before we proceed, please tell me if the following brutality, evil, persecution, torture, murder, and attempted genocide engendered under the name of Christ and the Church affects your conscience at all, and if you are truly going to attempt to deny that the following happened:
305-306 – Council of Elvira (now Granada, Spain). This council was representative of the Western European Church and among other things, it barred homosexuals the right to Communion.
314 – Council of Ancyra (now Ankara, Turkey). This council was representative of the Eastern European Church and it excluded the Sacraments for 15 years to unmarried men under the age of 20 who were caught in homosexual acts, and excluded the man for life if he was married and over the age of 50.
342 – Under advice from their bishops, the first law against same-sex marriage was promulgated by the Christian emperors Constantius II and Constans.
390 – Under advice from their bishops, Christian emperors Valentinian II, Theodosius I and Arcadius declared homosexual sex to be illegal and those who were guilty of it were condemned to be burned alive in front of the public.
498 – In spite of the laws against homosexuality, the Christian emperors continued to collect taxes on male prostitutes until the reign of Anastasius I, who finally abolishes the tax.
529 – The Christian emperor Justinian I (527–565) made homosexuals a public scapegoat for problems such as "famines,earthquakes, and pestilences."
589 – The Visigothic kingdom in Spain, is converted from Arianism to Catholicism. This conversion leads to a revision of the law to conform to those of Catholic countries. These revisions include provisions for the persecution of gays and Jews.
693 – In Iberia, Visigothic ruler Egica of Hispania and Septimania, demanded that a Church council confront the occurrence of homosexuality in the Kingdom. The Sixteenth Council of Toledo issued a statement in response, which was adopted by Egica, stating that homosexual acts be punished by castration, exclusion from Communion, hair shearing, one hundred stripes of the lash, and banishment into exile.
1120 – Baldwin II of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, convenes the Council of Nablus to address the vices within the Kingdom. The Council calls for the burning of individuals who perpetually commit homosexual acts.
1179 – The Third Lateran Council of Rome issues a decree for the excommunication of homosexuals.
1232 – Pope Gregory IX starts the Inquisition in the Italian City-States. Some cities called for banishment and/or amputation as punishments for 1st- and 2nd-offending homosexuals and burning for the 3rd or habitual offenders.
1260 – In France, first-offending homosexuals lost their testicles, second offenders lost their member, and third offenders were burned. Women caught in same-sex acts could be mutilated and executed as well.
1265 – Thomas Aquinas argues that homosexuality is second only to murder in the ranking of sins.
1283 – The French Civil Code dictated that convicted homosexuals should not only be burned but also that their property would be forfeited.
1370s – Jan van Aersdone and Willem Case were two men executed in Antwerp in the 1370s. The charge against them was same gender intercourse. Aersdone and Case stand out because records of their names have survived.
1432 – In Florence the first organization specifically intended to prosecute homosexuality is established, the "Night Officials", which over the next 70 years arrest about 10,000 men and youths.
1451 – Pope Nicholas V enables the papal Inquisition to persecute men who practice homosexuality.
1475 – In Peru, a chronicle written under the Capac Yupanqui government describes the persecution of homosexuals with public burnings and destruction of homes (a practice usually reserved for conquered tribes).
1483 – The Spanish Inquisition begins. Homosexuals were stoned, castrated, and burned. Between 1540 and 1700, more than 1,600 people were prosecuted for homosexuality.
1532 – Holy Roman Empire makes homosexuality punishable by death.
1533 – King Henry VIII passes the Buggery Act 1533 making anal intercourse punishable by death throughout England.
1620 – Brandenburg-Prussia criminalizes homosexuality, making it punishable by death.
1721 – Catherina Margaretha Linck is executed for lesbianism in Germany.
1836 – The last known execution for homosexuality in Great Britain. James Pratt and John Smith are hanged at Newgate prison, London after being caught together in private lodgings.
1895 – The trial of Oscar Wilde results in his being prosecuted under the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 for "gross indecency" for having sex with other males, and is sentenced to two years hard labor in prison, ruining his health.
1903 – In New York on 21 February 1903, New York police conducted the first United States recorded raid on a gay bathhouse, the Ariston Hotel Baths. 26 men were arrested and 12 brought to trial on sodomy charges; 7 men received sentences ranging from 4 to 20 years in prison.
1945 – Upon the liberation of Nazi concentration camps by Allied forces, those who were interned for homosexuality, and who miraculously survived.. are not freed, but required to serve out the full term of their sentences under Paragraph 175.
1954 – June 7th –Mathematical computer genius and WW2 hero Alan Turing commits suicide by cyanide poisoning, 18 months after being given a choice between two years in prison or libido-reducing hormone treatment for a year as a punishment for homosexuality.
I list this history and the historical persecution of gays so that we as Christians never again allow the desire to condemn others over their sins to become something evil and destructive.
