Homosexuals Crossing

Apologies for the absence..  I've been busy with work, the puppies, and a couple of trips abroad. I therefore think one of my usual ramblings is more than overdue, so here we go.

Caution: Homosexuals Crossing

Homosexuals holding hands. In public!! :o

I'm just back from Vienna, a city I visit a good 3 or 4 times a year.  Hitler had hated Vienna, because when he was there in the 1920s, it was far too Jewish, Slavic, cosmopolitan, and socialist.  By contrast, he declared "Finally, a German City!" when he moved to Munich.  The 20 July 1944 conspirators who tried to assassinate him dreamed of a free democratic European union, with its capital in Vienna, rather than Brussels.  It was the natural heart of Europe, straddling East and West, and the former capital of the great multi-ethnic Habsburg empire.

Instead, Vienna was divided in 1945, in a similar way that Berlin was.  When the Iron Curtain descended on Europe, from "Stettin in the North, to Trieste in the South" to quote Churchill, the effects on Vienna were profound.  No longer a crossroads, you effectively went to Vienna only to visit Vienna because just a few miles past the city you reached a mined, armed, dead-end.  I disliked the place intensely on my first few visits: stifling, Catholic, conservative.  A place where people in their 30s and 40s actually wore fur coats and hats without an sense of irony.  A backwater.

Then everything changed.  Since November 1989 I've watched the city slowly develop back into the type of place the Nazis loathed.  The road signs point once again to Bratislava, to Budapest and to Prague.  Unlike in the rest of Austria, the (mainly ultra orthodox) Jewish community is flourishing.  It's constantly ranked in the top three cities worldwide for quality of life.  And there's a big, visible, gay community.

Literally every time I see a Vienna tram I smile

I've been used to seeing the city trams flying rainbow flags (apparently by order of the mayor) all around the city, not just for LGBT Pride, but many of them all year round.  But this year there's something new.  It's that many of the pedestrian crossings in the centre of town have been changed to same-sex couples... with love hearts.  They are a mixture of male/male and female/female - as well as male/female couples (nice inclusive measure to bisexuals and straights!)

Here is a female couple dutifully showing you to wait for the green light at the entrance to the main shopping street, Kärtnerstrasse, close to the Vienna State Opera House:

Lesbians say DON'T WALK

Symbolism

A needless, silly bit of symbolism?  The Far Right Freedom Party certainly thinks so, and is sufficiently wound up they've threatened court action over the lights.  But here I am, a 44 year old, out, self-confident gay man, who had heard about the pedestrian lights and who felt a genuine pique of excitement and happiness to see that they actually existed.

When I was a kid growing up in Germany I loved Playmobil.  In about 1980 they suddenly started randomly including Turkish figures (that is brown faced, ordinary people, rather than historic characters dressed in a fez).  They've moved on to a whole range of ethnicities now, such as the black family below.

Playmobil rocks

I guess that unless you belong to a group that isn't in the majority, it isn't very easy to put yourself in the shoes of another group and realise what public invisibility feels like.  Same-sex couples aren't by any means invisible in tv programmes, movies etc in the way they were in say the 1980 or even 1990s, but this little thing (and the rainbow flags on the trams, which I adore) costs very little, will be ignored by many people, but will really matter to some.  

It's so easy to dismiss, but then you think of the unsure gay teenager who sees that someone very senior in the city administration has made this gesture of inclusiveness.  Or you smile at the thought of little child asking their parent why these street signs are different to the ones they normally see, and hope it's a lead in to a "different couples and families" exist type conversation. 

The Times They Are A Changin'

And if you have any sense of history you start reflecting on the place this is happening.   Yes, Vienna was traditionally a "red" city, but it's also the place where tens of thousands of cheering citizens poured out onto the Heldenplatz on 15 March 1938 to cheer Hitler's triumphant arrival in the city.  The sporadic outbursts of violence against the city's Jews in the 2. district led an embarrassed Berlin to radio through orders to tone down the aggression (there were lots of international journalists in town).  Nazism grew in extremely fertile ground in Catholic, right wing Austria, even in its capital.

Hitler addresses Vienna from the Hofburg Palace

Now that same square, just one year ago, was the place for another gathering of a different type.  It was at the far end of the picture and involved some 10,000 cheering Viennese.  This time they were there to greet home triumphantly a different one of their own: a certain bearded drag queen called Conchita.  Look behind the crowd with the rainbow flags to the pale grey building in the distance.  That is the Hofburg, and a keen eye will spot the exact balcony that Hitler had stood on, well within living memory.  And OMG I just noticed that there's one of those hat-wearing Austrians in the front row.  He must be lost.  The woman to his right doesn't look too happy either.  Oh well :P

WE LOVE YOU CONCHITA!

But seriously, do you get what a massive change this is?  At the incredibly serious, and wonderful, Haus der Musik, which is devoted to the Great Composers, the Theory of Sound etc. there is a Conchita exhibit right there as the first thing you see.  Vienna has gone through 180 degrees, and it's not just since 1938.  It's more like since 1989.

Conchita's Dress and Portrait, Haus der Musik. 26" waist. Amazing!

Just like Ireland, which recently gave a massive two fingers to a long history of the Church's attempts to control, manipulate, oppress and repress people's private lives and morality, this is about so much more than just LGBT rights.  The popular referendum in the Republic of Ireland was about accepting that all sorts of people don't "fit the mould" (whatever illusory thing that mould was).  It was about sending a huge signal of acceptance.  It was about saying that we want a modern society, where people are more than tolerated: they are welcomed.  In both Ireland and Vienna's cases that is probably as much a domestic message as one intended for an international audience.  It's about how people outside view those places today.  And it's a message that genuinely fills me with happiness and hope.

An outstanding, inspiring result in the Irish SSM referendum

Now, most importantly... the next blog will contain puppy updates, I promise!

Eurovision Triumph

Well, it's all over for another year.  "Gay Christmas" came and went last night with 125 million viewers across the continent.  Initial estimates suggest at least 126 million of these were gay men.  Families at home, bars, and drunken Eurovision parties tuned in for the annual smörgåsbord of camp fabulousness.  It's the yearly celebration of how deliciously bonkers we Europeans truly are. 

It was a delight, for many reasons.  One of these is that show has gone way past the stage of having only cult "irony" value for the sheer car-crash value of the horrendous acts and dreadful costumes.  The Terry Wogan piss-take era is now firmly behind us, with some arguably very good chunes indeed.  Heck, I wasted £4.74 on iTunes this morning frantically downloading some of them, so they must be good.  

Then we had the sets: Ukraine deserves a special mention inventing a whole new sexual fetish.  This involves putting a totally fit guy dressed in a shirt and tie in a giant hamster wheel and asking him to run round and round for you.  If you haven't yet tried it, I recommend you do.  When gay Twitter discovered Hamster Man's amazingly sexy name was <ROMAN> it frankly imploded for several hours.  Well, I had to lie down for a bit anyway.

TeamWurst

Eurovision 2014 will go down in history, though, for its result.  Unless you're in some distant village in Outer Mongolia with yak mail being the only connection with the rest of the world, you'll know that a bearded drag queen from Austria, Conchita Wurst, took first prize.  She didn't just win - she romped home with a massive 290 votes. 

Conchita is exquisitely beautiful.  She has a figure to die for.  In her own words, she's a "singer in a fabulous dress, with great hair, and a beard."  The new Queen of Europe is a bearded lady.  Let's pause for a moment to consider her name: yes, it actually means "Pussy Sausage" in a combination of Spanish and German if you were wondering.

The person behind Conchita isn't transgender, unlike Sharon Cohen (Dana International) who took the Eurovision prize for Israel in 1998.  Conchita is the stage persona of a 25 year old guy called Tom Neuwirth, who's from grew up in a provincial town of 3000 people in Styria.  He's a gay man in drag.  With a beard.  

Russian politician Vitaly Milonov, one of the architects of the country's "gay propaganda" law last month called Eurovision a hotbed of sodomy and called for a Russian boycott of the show.  He further called for the "pervert" Conchita to be excluded, and labelled her an "obvious transvestite".  Regarding the latter claim, Vitaly, in other news bear shit was this morning discovered in the woods outside St Petersburg. 

The Votes

Ten million people dialed in across the continent last night to vote in, to add their voice to the professional jury (since 2009 voting is 50/50 jury and popular vote).  What they did was to confirm that this, our continent, is a far more liberal and tolerant place that many ever thought it was.  Let's be honest: Conchita's song was fair to good.  It wasn't a stand out winner if simply heard on the radio.  It was the act that made this phenomenal: last night she looked a million Euro.  

I watched a fascinating voting pattern: one after the other the ten countries with same sex marriage joined #TeamWurst, giving her full or nearly full marks.  Belgium, Netherlands, UK, Spain, France, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Portugal: not one didn't do so.  Countries where same sex is very much on the cards (Ireland and Finland) also joined them, as did some other countries you might not have expected to hand over the douze points: Hungary, Greece and Israel.  

Moreover, if you strip out the jury votes and simply look at the popular votes, Conchita's popularity amongst the people of Europe was even more resounding.  Her score goes up from 290 votes (a margin of 52 over the runner up, Netherlands) to 306 votes (86 votes clear).  The juries are there for very good reason and the official score is all that matters - but what's clear from this is a reinforcement of the fact that people across Europe loved her.

 

It just really struck me: is there anywhere else that would fall over itself to vote for a bearded drag queen if they had such a contest?  I can't imagine this happening in a million years in the USA for example.  
 

No Politics

The Eurovision Song Contest is older than the EU.  It was created just 11 years after the Second World War.  The armies of Hitler (that other Austrian whose facial hair is really rather famous) and Stalin had decimated Europe.  It was set up to bring the people of Europe together: quite the tall order and amazingly idealistic given the time.  Political statements are expressly forbidden. 

2014 is the year of anniversaries.  It's 100 years since the heir to the Austrian throne was assassinated at Sarajevo, plunging Europe into the hell of WW1. It's 75 years since Reichskristallnacht, when synagogues were burnt across Germany (and Austria): the precursor to both WW2 and the holocaust.  It's 70 years since the D-Day landings and hope spread out over the continent like a slow-burning flame from the beaches of Normandy.  It's also 70 years since the failed assassination attempt on Hitler by aristocratic German officers who paid with their lives.  They had proposed a union of democratic European nations, with its capital in Vienna, the seat of the old Holy Roman Empire.  It's 25 years since the Berlin Wall, the physical symbol of division across the continent, came crashing down, and Austria resumed its natural place at the cross-roads of a Europe that has been healing ever since.

WHAT symbolism then, that Conchita won this year, and next year Eurovision will take place in Vienna.  Rainbow flags were flying everywhere in the audience last night.  Conchita could not say what she wanted to because of the no-politics rule, but everyone knew exactly what she meant when she said:

"This is dedicated to everyone who believes in a future of peace and freedom.  You know who you are.  We are unity and we are unstoppable."

Yes, Conchita, we are.  We are LGBT Europeans and the tens, if not hundreds, of millions of straight friends and supporters right across the continent. 

So Proud to be European 

What a different place this continent of ours has become.  It's so easy to forget when you hear constantly the repugnant views of xenophobic, homophobic politicians reported across Europe and on our own doorstep (yes, UKIP, I'm looking at you).  

The vote was a huge f*ck you of liberal values over the dying voice of social conservatism.  It was an affirmation of anyone who has been different and been stigmatised because of it.  It was the personal triumph of a schoolboy from Gmunden who grew up fancying other boys and wanting to wear frocks. 

It was a peaceful, democratic, liberal Europe slowly but surely taking the lead dragging the world into a new century, exactly 100 years after it had plunged it into militaristic chaos and destruction.  It's a new Europe that has voted for marriage equality in an increasing number of countries.  It's by no means without its problems, but in so many respects, it's just such a great place to be. 

I was so, so proud to be European last night.  What a great side of people this brought out, and what an amazing, symbolically significant thing a camp song contest can be, particularly when a bearded lady wins it.  Who'd ever have imagined it :-)

Homophobia and the B&B case

It's been another excellent day for LGBT rights in the United Kingdom.

The "Christian" (I'll explain the inverted commas in a moment) guest house owners who refused to allow a gay couple to stay, in clear contravention of the law, have lost their case in the Supreme Court.  They were funded by the homophobic Christian Institute in their lengthy struggle to have the right to discriminate against the gay couple, in case you wondering.  They lost in the County Court, they lost (unanimously) in the Court of Appeal, and now they've lost (unanimously) in the Supreme Court. You'd hope they've got the quite clear message by now.

One of the most heartening aspects of this case were the words of Baroness Hale, the Deputy President of the Supreme Court, and as such the most senior woman judge in the country.   She went way beyond simply rejecting the guest-house owners' spurious arguments, with this passage right at the end of her judgment:

"Sexual orientation is a core component of a person's identity which requires fulfilment through relationships with others of the same orientation... [Homosexuals] were long denied the possibility of fulfilling themselves through relationships with others.  This was an affront to their dignity as human beings which our law has now (some would say belatedly) recognised.  Homosexuals can enjoy the same freedom and the same relationships as any others.  But we should not underestimate the continuing legacy of those centuries of discrimination, persecution even, which is still going in many parts of the world."

These are beautiful words, coming as they do, from someone so very senior in the judiciary.  When I studied law (at the same Cambridge college as Baroness Hale, no less!) I remember sitting in a supervision in 1994 reading the words of the Law Lords in the recently handed down R v Brown case.  It followed a homophobic witch-hunt by the Police, and the overtones of the judgement were extremely unpleasant.  How times change, and so very rapidly.

The wonderful Baroness Hale of Richmond

The owners of the guest-house in this case have taken every opportunity to portray themselves as reasonable, simple Christian believers.  It is actually hard not to see them as are hard-nosed zealots, determined to take their alleged right to discriminate as far as they possibly can.  They have chosen to open a business and simply can't expect to get away in 2013 with the equivalent of hanging a "No Blacks, No Irish" sign on their door.  They do not even share the part of the building that was used as a commercial guesthouse with their private living quarters, nor is their any evidence they asked straight couples for proof of marriage: quite the contrary.

They will continue to portray themselves as a persecuted minority in the ilk of the early Christian martyrs.  There is a certain group, like them, who seem to revel in their status as long-suffering Joan of Arc types.  Being thrown to the lions in ancient Rome is nothing compared to what they suffer.  They were after all simply "following God's word" in discriminating against the gay couple.  After today's judgement they said they preferred to disobey the law of the land if it meant obeying "the law of God".  They forget that it's their interpretation of the law of God, and there are certain huge flaws in their argument as I've pointed out before with a quick look at Leviticus.

For any straight readers, imagine the personal offence and damage to your basic dignity at being told that cannot stay somewhere because of your relationship.  It happened to my friend Henrietta and her girlfriend in an expensive boutique hotel one Easter, before this legislation existed, which wasn't that long ago.  The aggressive hotel owner told her he "wouldn't have any of that going on under his roof" and literally threw their bags out of the reception.

Of course there are amusing elements to this case too.  I love the assumption that sharing a double bed means you're going to have sex (or will be tempted to).  It's positively Victorian: hands above the sheets, boys and girls!  How about the times I've shared a double-bed with sundry male and female friends, with my mother, and indeed with my dog, without feeling even the slightest need to shag my bed-fellow in the middle of the night.   Moreover, who needs a double-bed if you do actually fancy your bedroom mate?  Do these people have no imagination? :-)

Christian Homophobia

I still encounter homophobia on a regular basis on Twitter.  A common theme arises: by no means all Christians are homophobes, but almost all homophobes I come across seem to be Christians.

There's the zealot Catholic stalker of mine who talks not about gay people, but of people who "have SSA" (same-sex attraction) as if it were an affliction or a temporary disorder that can be "cured".  I didn't chose my sexual orientation, honey - you however chose your faith.. and your nasty, bigoted views.  Then there are the random men, often from America and Australia, who just hurl out violent homophobic abuse to strangers.  It's a very odd straight man who spends all his time thinking about gay sex and gay men.  You don't need to be Dr Freud to take a guess at what's going on here.

Who you trying to kid?!

As ever, the hollow vessels make the most noise, however, and it's important to remember that the bulk of Christians I interact with don't share this type of view point.  In fact several I know are embarrassed, at pains to disassociate themselves from these attitudes, and are genuinely some of the kindest people I know.  It's a constant task to remind yourself of them, but it would make me guilty of the same prejudice I deplore not to.  Aside from anything, they're a delight to talk to.

I therefore deliberately put the word "Christian" in inverted commas at the start of this blog post because my understanding is that the type of people who would shut people out, discriminate, judge and behave spitefully to others based on Jesus' teachings are about as far away from "salvation" as it gets.  It's just such a shame they have such enormously big gobs and make you forget about the good guys.

Going Forward

Gay men, in particular, were often accused in the past of being unable to forge lasting relationships and commitment.  Imagine the effects on their relationships if for a chunk of their life they were at risk of being arrested for having private, consensual sex in their own home.  Imagine what it would be like to live through Mrs Thatcher's government introducing the most spiteful piece of hate-legislation parliament has probably ever passed, with words in it like "pretend family relationships".  Imagine hearing as recently as 2012 from the most senior Catholic in Britain (who as it turned out sexually assaulted young male priests), and half the Tory party in Parliament, that your relationship was in no way worthy of being put on the same footing as heterosexual marriages.  Imagine not knowing for sure until 27 November 2013 whether you could go away for a break together and risk having a guest-house shut you and your partner out for being gay.

All of that has a massive knock-on effect.  Everyone wants their loving relationships affirmed and their love for one another honoured by friends, family and society at large.  When the law allows the discrimination it has done, it places an enormous strain on things.  The fact that so many LGBT people have worked through all this and led happy, fulfilling lives with contented relationships is a real testament to them.  As the legal and societal position continues to improve, so I believe will the lives and relationships of those in the LGBT community.  This a wonderful, wonderful thing.

So it's been another great day, just like the day Parliament finally passed the Same Sex Marriage Bill.  Thank you, Baroness Hale, and your learned colleagues.  You have no appreciation of the ripple effect your splendid words and sentiments may come to have. 

Alan Turing and German Gays

Alan Turing was a national hero.  He is widely regarded as the father of computer science and was behind the breaking of the German Enigma code at Bletchley Park. His genius allowed critical knowledge of German military movements.  It is no exaggeration to say that he was behind one of Britain's most critical contributions to the Allied and Soviet victories over the Nazis.

Turing happened to be gay.  He was 40 and was in a relationship with a 19 year old when he was arrested in 1952 and charged with the same Victorian offence that Oscar Wilde and an estimated 75,000 other gay men were, before consenting sex between male adults (at the time over 21 years old) was finally allowed in England and Wales in 1967.  Turing was chemically castrated and died in unclear circumstances aged 41.

Alan Turing as a young man

 Problems with a Pardon

This post was prompted by David Allen Green's piece at New Statesman on Turing and the issues around his suggested pardon.  I found it both powerful and actually extremely moving.  I really recommend you give it a read.

As the piece points out, Prime Minister Gordon Brown issued an official apology on behalf of our country for the way that Turing was treated, back in 2009.  Pressure has been increased recently, however, for a pardon.  There are problems with this.  A pardon stems from the ancient Royal Prerogative of Mercy.  It is in effect the Monarch using their power to forgive a person who has committed and been convicted of a crime.  The person has still technically breached the law and is guilty; only morally are they are considered innocent.  The law has been correctly applied (as opposed to a misapplication of justice, where it has not).  The conviction still stands on their criminal record.

As David Allen Green points out, such an act is legally and practically useless.  Turing is long since dead, it cannot affect his serving of any sentence, and this is therefore only of symbolic value.  Gordon Brown's apology was enough if all we wanted was a symbolic act.  The chief executive of Stonewall has described the exercise as "pointless".  Others would say the symbolism is in fact worse than useless, but wrong, given the State is reasserting that a crime was committed.

Turing's German Contemporaries

Now let's consider for a moment the fate of gay contemporaries of Turing in Nazi Germany.  Gay sex had been permitted in some German States (such as Bavaria) prior to German Unification in 1871.  Paragraph 175 of the unified German Criminal Code made it an offence throughout the country.  The Social Democrats attempted to repeal "this disgraceful paragraph" as early as the 1890s.  It looked likely to be abolished in the early 1930s and was actual put on a "reform package" before the Reichstag, but in 1933 the Nazis took power.

The Nazis extended the law to cover homosexual thoughts (i.e. orientation) rather than just acts.  After discharge from criminal prisons, many gay men were moved directly to the concentration (as opposed to death) camps.  Here they formed one of the lowest tiers in the prisoner hierarchy, marked out by pink triangles on their uniforms.  Up to 15,000 died of maltreatment, starvation, illness or simple murder.  Unlike Jews or Gypsies they were not subjected to factory type genocide, and the numbers involved were much smaller than the other groups (estimated at 6,000,000 and 1,000,000 respectively).

Nonetheless the individual suffering, based on sexual orientation, was horrendous.  Death rates ran at around 60%.  Those who did survive left to find scant pity or understanding for them.  They were considered sexual criminals rather than victims and some (released by the Allies) were sent back to ordinary prisons to fulfill their prison sentences.  German courts continued to prosecute gay men under paragraph 175 until 1969 (two years later than England/Wales legalised gay sex).  Around 140,000 men in total were convicted under paragraph 175 over the period 1871-1969.

Dachau Monument to Gay Victims of the Nazis

German Rehabilitation 

In 2002 Social Democrat, Green and Far Left members of the German Bundestag succeeded in extending a law called the NS-Aufhebungsgesetz to men convicted under paragraph 175.  This was in the face of votes to the contrary from the conservative CDU/CSU parties and the liberal FDP.   There was a mixed reaction from the LGBT community: whilst the measure was welcomed as far as it went, it did not affect those convicted between 1945 and 1969 under paragraph 175: the very same provision the Nazis had used against gay men.  Their convictions remain unaffected to this day.

The interesting thing here is that most articles on the 2002 law refer to a "pardon" of the victims. A quick look at the German statute reveals that this is legally incorrect. The Act extends to gay criminal offences another Statute of 1998 (apologies that the links are in German).  That Act abolishes the decisions of Nazi courts of "justice" between 1933 and 1945 which were based on political, military, race, religious or philosophical reasons.  This is not a pardon: it is saying the offence never happened and the conviction had no legal basis.  The slate is wiped clean and no criminal record remains.

Back to the Turing Pardon

So, we return to Alan Turing.  David Allen Green's suggestion is a mechanism based on the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, introduced under the Coalition.  Under this men who engaged in consensual gay sex which would no longer constitute an offence, can apply to have their criminal records removed.   The suggestion is that this could be applied to deceased victims of the law that convicted Turing. 

It goes much further than a pardon one, both legally and morally.  It acknowledges that the law was wrong before 1967 and grave wrongs were done.  In effect it would place Turing (and not just him, but all of the other 75,000 victims of this law) in the same position as German gay men convicted under the Nazis.  There is a beautiful and befitting symmetry in this.  The gay German victims of the Nazis who benefited from the law of 2002 would not have done so without Turing's work and Allied victory.  It is right, and it is just for our government to take this step now.