http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/12/gay-sex-bans-one-of-the-british-empires-most-enduring-legacies/282307/
QuoteGay Sex Bans: One of the British Empire's Most Enduring Legacies
When India's supreme court effectively re-banned gay sex on Wednesday, it set aside the ruling of one of its own high courts in favor of a law imposed on India by its British occupiers in 1861. That means it has now re-joined 75 other countries that explicitly punish gay sex with imprisonment. Here's a look:
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What do many of these countries have in common? More than half were former British colonies:
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In fact, the law that India's supreme court just upheld is one of the most resilient relics of the British Empire. Known as Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, it imposed Victorian values on what colonial rulers viewed as unpardonable tolerance toward homosexuality throughout their empire. The British instituted versions of Section 377 in colonies all over the world. India's ruling on Wednesday brings the tally to 42 out of 52 British Commonwealth countries in which the law is still on the books.
But was it just the British? You might notice that a lot of the other countries from the map above where homosexuality is illegal were French colonies:
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And many Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish and Belgian ex-colonies have high penalties for gay sex too. However, in these cases colonialism isn't the culprit. Nearly all of the non-British former European colonies with stiff penalties for homosexual relations instituted them after independence.
That's probably because the French Revolution banned religious courts, which had previously handled sodomy. This policy spread to the Netherlands in 1811 when France invaded the country. Throughout the 1800s, Spain, Portugal, Belgium and Italy all decriminalized sodomy, as Douglas E. Sanders, a professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia, explains.
A more obvious factor keeping homosexuality illegal in many of these countries is Islam. Take for instance the countries that punish gay sex with death: Mauritania, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Yemen, and parts of Nigeria and Somalia. Some—Nigeria, Sudan and Somalia—inherited British colonial anti-gay laws. But they too instituted the death penalty long after independence—most in the last 40 years—in line with Islamic sharia law. Many of the other 76 countries with severe anti-gay laws are also Islamic states.
India, however, isn't. And before the British invasion, it was much more tolerant of homosexuality. So why would India and so many other ex-colonial countries cling so tightly to the moral whims of Victorian Englishmen that were never their own?
One reason might be that morality codes give governments a way to build a national identity around shared values, often as a foil to permissive Western countries. But a more prosaic one is that anti-gay laws are also a handy way to fortify state control (as is now happening in Russia).
What's more, they always have been. Section 377 originated from a 1536 English law instituted by Henry VIII. Legally speaking, it shifted the law from church courts to secular ones. In practice, it let Henry accuse Catholics of rampant sodomy, sullying the Papacy's divine authority, argues Sanders. That turned out to be sufficient pretext for Henry to justify seizing monastic properties, claiming a huge portion of England's landed wealth for the state.
Yet another thing we can blame on the Reformation :P
Well, I'm glad to know that now it'd be illegal for a man or group of men to rape me in India.
:bleeding:
The blame the British angle on this one is just fucked up.
Because the British happened to rule India at a time when the world was full of ignorant fuckwits passing such laws, 66 years of Indian bigots are therefore absolved of blame?
I just hate it when backwards countries try to explain away their modern problems by finger pointing at long dead people.
Quote from: Tyr on December 13, 2013, 06:02:32 AM
I just hate it when backwards countries try to explain away their modern problems by finger pointing at long dead people.
The Atlantic is an American magazine I thought.
Quote from: Gups on December 13, 2013, 06:53:17 AM
Quote from: Tyr on December 13, 2013, 06:02:32 AM
I just hate it when backwards countries try to explain away their modern problems by finger pointing at long dead people.
The Atlantic is an American magazine I thought.
You also see that attitude from people in the relevant countries themselves however.
In this case, the people in the country apparently don't see a problem. Because they're backward.
And they aren't blaming anyone for putting in place laws they support.
Progressives do.
you were the messing stuff up for a few centuries, the very least they can take out of the situation is some free "blame the UK' cards :P
Yeah, because third-world countries that weren't colonized by the UK have a great record vis-a-vis tolerating fags. :rolleyes:
I generally have a pretty low opinion of journalists to begin with, but this Gwynn Guilford fellow is utterly worthless. "Surely correlation and causation must be the same thing, right?"
See? The Belgian Congo wasn't that bad. At least they installed good progressive values.
Amusingly, some of the places with the most gay-friendly laws were *also* former British colonies/dominions - Canada, Australia, New Zealand.
Quote from: Malthus on December 13, 2013, 09:59:20 AM
Amusingly, some of the places with the most gay-friendly laws were *also* former British colonies/dominions - Canada, Australia, New Zealand.
Hush you!
We have met the enemy, and he is us :weep:
What irrational anti-colonial garbage that article is. Obama would be proud.
I don't see the problem with the article. Seems like common sense to me.
Neither China nor Saudi Arabia, nor Ethiopia, were ever colonized, all either have or at one point had repressive legislation.
Sorry, I won't blame the victim.
:rolleyes:
The article is OK is anodyne. The headline is pretty crap and doesn'r reqlly reflect teh article, but then sub-editors don't like actually reading stuff.
Quote from: Queequeg on December 13, 2013, 11:16:17 AM
Neither China nor Saudi Arabia, nor Ethiopia, were ever colonized, all either have or at one point had repressive legislation.
So?
It's not just the British Empire's legacy, but the article says as much.
Quote from: Sheilbh on December 13, 2013, 11:10:42 AM
I don't see the problem with the article. Seems like common sense to me.
Color me unimpressed. It weakens its own argument by finding another thing alot of those countries had in common and I was not under the impression the British were out enforcing sex laws on the populace. I bet those laws were mostly to apply to local whites who moved in.
Now maybe I am wrong but since there were always such a tiny number of Brits in most of those countries I have a hard time believing they were that hands on controlling the local population's personal lives. But maybe I am wrong, and the British were twisting the local leader's arms and making them persecute gays.
I mean the fact other non-former British colonies in the neighborhood also have similar laws makes that position a little weak no? The common sense part to me is simply that the British Empire was huge, so lots of countries are former British Colonies.
Quote from: Sheilbh on December 13, 2013, 11:21:18 AM
Quote from: Queequeg on December 13, 2013, 11:16:17 AM
Neither China nor Saudi Arabia, nor Ethiopia, were ever colonized, all either have or at one point had repressive legislation.
So?
It's not just the British Empire's legacy, but the article says as much.
If a nation was never colonized and is currently strengthening antisodomy legislation doesn't that call the causation in to question?
If you argue that Empire is the only source of sodomy laws, then yes. But no one is.
On the other hand there are 80 countries that criminalise homosexuality. Over half of those laws originate on colonial penal codes. Pointing to the link isn't absurd, irrational anti-colonialism.
Though I'm not entirely sure what would qualify as irrational anti-colonialism.
Quote from: Sheilbh on December 13, 2013, 11:57:15 AM
If you argue that Empire is the only source of sodomy laws, then yes. But no one is.
On the other hand there are 80 countries that criminalise homosexuality. Over half of those laws originate on colonial penal codes. Pointing to the link isn't absurd, irrational anti-colonialism.
Though I'm not entirely sure what would qualify as irrational anti-colonialism.
The issue though is that there isn't a specific correlation between imperial status and anti-homosexual laws. In the time period in which colonialism was a fact of life, there was a near-universal belief among colonizers and colonized alike that gayness was bad and ought to be legally proscribed. Since the end of colonization, countries formerly within the Empire have gone different ways on the topic - former imperial bits like Canada, Australia and New Zealand have very liberal and progressive approaches.
In short, there is nothing to indicate that being part of the British Empire, or not, made much of a difference in the matter. Would Indian have had anti-gay legislation if it had never been part of the Empire? Would Canada have had anti-gay legislation if
it had never been part of the Empire? I'd suggest that the answers have more to do with local concerns than former imperial status.
Quote from: Sheilbh on December 13, 2013, 11:57:15 AM
If you argue that Empire is the only source of sodomy laws, then yes. But no one is.
On the other hand there are 80 countries that criminalise homosexuality. Over half of those laws originate on colonial penal codes. Pointing to the link isn't absurd, irrational anti-colonialism.
Though I'm not entirely sure what would qualify as irrational anti-colonialism.
So you're saying that the article is pointing out that the legacy of the British Empire is not anti-gay laws, but rather the rule of law? I don't agree.
Besides, any anti-colonialism is irrational.
Quote from: Sheilbh on December 13, 2013, 11:57:15 AM
On the other hand there are 80 countries that criminalise homosexuality. Over half of those laws originate on colonial penal codes. Pointing to the link isn't absurd, irrational anti-colonialism.
Though I'm not entirely sure what would qualify as irrational anti-colonialism.
Colonialism is a pretty big and complicated topic with lots of regional variations so it is pretty easy to make big irrational generalizations about it, especially since it is very recent and there are still lots of strong emotions about it. It might also be demanding we give independence to territories that do not want it just because. Or trying to find the evil people and the good people, which I find silly.
Anyway I never said it was irrational or absurd I simply said I found it unconvincing.
QuoteIf you argue that Empire is the only source of sodomy laws, then yes. But no one is.
It is not claiming that, it is claiming the British Empire in particular is. Which, again, I found unconvincing due to how that Empire functioned. It tended to be hands off and rule through local elites and I found it unlikely they would have dictated such personal laws. I hypothesized that these laws strike me as ones mostly applying to the British themselves when operating in those countries. Am I wrong here?
Quote from: derspiess on December 13, 2013, 10:14:55 AM
We have met the enemy, and he is us :weep:
What irrational anti-colonial garbage that article is. Obama George Washington would be proud.
The Atlantic?!? :yuk: :x :ultra:
Quote from: Sheilbh on December 13, 2013, 11:10:42 AM
I don't see the problem with the article. Seems like common sense to me.
Seems like common bullshit to me. What India has done has little or nothing to do with being a former British colony. As the article itself observes, many of the countries with such laws are not former British colonies, and many former British colonies don't have such laws. There are a number of things with which one can correlate anti-gay statutes, but being a former British colony isn't one of them.
Quote from: Malthus on December 13, 2013, 12:08:04 PMThe issue though is that there isn't a specific correlation between imperial status and anti-homosexual laws. In the time period in which colonialism was a fact of life, there was a near-universal belief among colonizers and colonized alike that gayness was bad and ought to be legally proscribed.
I think there is. It's not universal but look at any list of countries where homosexuality is still illegal and chances are they're either Muslim or former British colonies.
To me there's two things that really show the imperial element. First of all there are a lot of countries that ban homosexuality that have nothing in common except the British Empire and the penal code Britain took to her colonies - first India and then with adaptations all over the world. That is the only link I can see between Belize, Sierra Leone, Pakistan, India, Singapore, Kenya and Papua New Guinea (I mean in the 19th century there was a lot of sodomy in Papua New Guinea :P). They don't have the same religion, or culture, they're not equally poor. But they all have some form of British colonial law which include sodomy laws. Also many of them have the same penalty because imperial administrators mainly used existing colonial penal codes for different colonies.
Secondly you can look at an area that was colonised by more than one European power and, chances are, the ones that have sodomy laws will be ex-British colonies. So homosexuality is legal in Cote d'Ivoire, Niger and Burkina Faso, but illegal in Ghana, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. It's illegal in Belize and Guyana, but legal in the rest of mainland America. Illegal in the Cook Islands and (until recently) Fiji but okay in French Polynesia and New Caledonia.
You're right that at the time sodomy was frowned upon in most societies. The difference is the British Empire imposed on her colonies a penal code with varying degrees of harsh sentences for it, while most other empires didn't.
QuoteSince the end of colonization, countries formerly within the Empire have gone different ways on the topic - former imperial bits like Canada, Australia and New Zealand have very liberal and progressive approaches.
Canada and New Zealand I'll give you. Australia's not terribly liberal. They don't have civil unions or adoption by gay couples (but gay single people can adopt :bleeding:) and they've constitutionally banned gay marriage. Legally I think South Africa may be the most liberal. The ANC started supporting gay marriage in the 90s (though it didn't come in until recently) and their constitution was the first to explicitly prohibit all discrimination on the grounds of gender, sex or sexual orientation. It may still be the only one, I don't know :mellow:
QuoteIn short, there is nothing to indicate that being part of the British Empire, or not, made much of a difference in the matter.
But I think it is a key indicator. The majority of OIC states ban homosexuality, and it affects the majority of people too. The only other organisation I can think of like that is the Commonwealth where 41 of the 53 countries ban homosexuality and again it affects the majority of people in the Commonwealth. As I said there's only around 80 countries that do ban homosexuality and the majority of them are former British Empire.
QuoteIt is not claiming that, it is claiming the British Empire in particular is. Which, again, I found unconvincing due to how that Empire functioned. It tended to be hands off and rule through local elites and I found it unlikely they would have dictated such personal laws. I hypothesized that these laws strike me as ones mostly applying to the British themselves when operating in those countries. Am I wrong here?
I think you're wrong. I could be wrong myself here, but I think there was a shift in the mid-19th century from a sort of laissez-faire, mercantile, plundering imperialism to High Victorian, reform the world imperialism.
The Indian Penal Code - which is still the basis of laws against gays in Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Burma and Singapore - was imposed in 1860, in part I think because of the Indian Mutiny. To an extent Neil's right. It's clearly a pretty decent code of laws given that it's still in use. It was also a model for other penal codes in different colonies. So there are oddities, Nigeria got a penal code adapted from the Indian one. Jamaica had one written by a liberal jurist so the punishments for 'buggery' (not sodomy) are far lower, but then Jamaica got one based on the Nigerian one and Ghana got the one written for Jamaica. These penal codes were in the briefcase of every colonial administrator sent to run a district - and as a Victorian writer noted, with praise, they didn't have to pass any Parliament or ask any local opinion so they could be imposed on purely moral and rational grounds.
But you're right, from my understanding, they didn't apply in the princely states - but did then become the basis for most post-colonial legal systems.
I think there was a concerted effort to try and make the world a little more English. These penal codes all of which include specific sections on sodomy were part of that. It was an attempt to make model, moral Victorians. Partly I think because there was a sort-of sexual panic about Empire. There was a fear of Indian mistresses and wives at this period. I think similarly the perceived native incontinence was seen as a problem to be fixed. In doing so you'd be making them more moral and more civilised.
The codes definitely were aimed at the local population rather than just the British. I read that the expansion of the IPC's definition of unnatural acts to include oral sex was in the prosecution of two Indian men who were caught but it couldn't be proved that there'd been anal penetration.
As an aside, I can't work it in so I'll just shove it here, I always loved Edward Coke's suggestion that the English were introduced to sodomy by Italian traders in the City of London as indicated by the word being of Italian origin :lol:
QuoteThere are a number of things with which one can correlate anti-gay statutes, but being a former British colony isn't one of them.
I'd say it and being an Islamic state are probably the two strongest indicators.
Edit: One other thing is how it's interesting that basically the roles have reversed. These laws were put in place to impose English morals on colonies, but now the argument is that they're important to preserve Indian/African/Singaporean identity against the tide of Western liberalism.
Worst magazine I never read.
QuoteI'd say it and being an Islamic state are probably the two strongest indicators.
Haven't seen
Before Night Falls, have you?
I think it's fair to say that there were roughly three types/periods of legalized sexual orientation discrimination we are dealing with;
Ecclesiastical-Frequently based on Abrahamic sexual hangups, but TBH generally speaking I think the image of non-Western societies as non-homophobic is radically overblown. Just because the various courts practiced pederasty does not mean toleration for equal, exclusive relationships between adult men. There are actually relatively few of these even in radically non-western sexual cultures like that of Ancient Greece. I think maybe Aristophanes is in this category, but not sure, don't know enough.
Modernist-Homosexuality as psychological problem, dealt with harshly by various Socialist and Fascist regimes, as well as Victorian Empires. Adopted in Decolonization process.
Postmodern-Something new we're seeing in Russia and perhaps India, homophobia as a rejection of spiritually corrupt West. Kind of a vague Slavophile vibe in Russia, but probably some combination of anti-European sentiment and post-colonial nuttery in India.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on December 13, 2013, 09:39:33 PM
Worst magazine I never read.
Dip your toe. You won't regret it.
I read Highlights.
Quote from: Ed Anger on December 14, 2013, 06:43:07 PM
I read Highlights.
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Quote from: Peter Wiggin on December 13, 2013, 09:39:33 PM
Worst magazine I never read.
Did you ever read the articles in Playboy?
Articles? :unsure:
:D
Quote from: Sheilbh on December 13, 2013, 08:52:00 PM
I think there is. It's not universal but look at any list of countries where homosexuality is still illegal and chances are they're either Muslim or former British colonies.
To me there's two things that really show the imperial element. First of all there are a lot of countries that ban homosexuality that have nothing in common except the British Empire and the penal code Britain took to her colonies - first India and then with adaptations all over the world. That is the only link I can see between Belize, Sierra Leone, Pakistan, India, Singapore, Kenya and Papua New Guinea (I mean in the 19th century there was a lot of sodomy in Papua New Guinea :P). They don't have the same religion, or culture, they're not equally poor. But they all have some form of British colonial law which include sodomy laws. Also many of them have the same penalty because imperial administrators mainly used existing colonial penal codes for different colonies.
Secondly you can look at an area that was colonised by more than one European power and, chances are, the ones that have sodomy laws will be ex-British colonies. So homosexuality is legal in Cote d'Ivoire, Niger and Burkina Faso, but illegal in Ghana, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. It's illegal in Belize and Guyana, but legal in the rest of mainland America. Illegal in the Cook Islands and (until recently) Fiji but okay in French Polynesia and New Caledonia.
You're right that at the time sodomy was frowned upon in most societies. The difference is the British Empire imposed on her colonies a penal code with varying degrees of harsh sentences for it, while most other empires didn't.
Your own article notes that many French, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish and Belgian ex-colonies have high penalties for gay sex too. However, it lets the colonizers off the hook in those cases because the laws were introduced after de-colonization:
QuoteHowever, in these cases colonialism isn't the culprit. Nearly all of the non-British former European colonies with stiff penalties for homosexual relations instituted them after independence.
An astute reader will notice that something the British ex-colonies and other European ex-colonies that punish homosex have in common, is a culture that frowns on homosex - either because of tradition pre-dating colonialism, or as an anti-Western thing - which even applies to places that were never colonized, like Russia.
In short, the fact that some of these countries were former British colonies isn't a very strong predictive factor. Sure, the Brits had a penal code that made gay sex illegal. The interesting thing is why some contries have deliberately chosen, many years later, to retain it (or introduce it, in places which did not have it - like other former Euro-colonies).
What's the theory here - that the former Brit colonies just
forgot the laws were on the books since decolonization? That's not what has happened. See India.
Homosex? :D
If only those Indian judges had more exposure to Garbon. ;)
Quote from: Malthus on December 16, 2013, 04:55:52 PM
If only those Indian judges had more exposure to Garbon. ;)
Are you advocating torture before execution?
Quote from: Malthus on December 16, 2013, 04:13:33 PMYour own article notes that many French, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish and Belgian ex-colonies have high penalties for gay sex too. However, it lets the colonizers off the hook in those cases because the laws were introduced after de-colonization
As I say I think there's two big predictors one is Islam and the other is the British Empire. The many former French and Spanish colonies that have imposed penalties for sodomy are Muslim. By my count, of the 80 countries that have a penalty for it, only 8 have neither British colonial history or a Muslim majority population.
QuoteAn astute reader will notice that something the British ex-colonies and other European ex-colonies that punish homosex have in common, is a culture that frowns on homosex - either because of tradition pre-dating colonialism, or as an anti-Western thing - which even applies to places that were never colonized, like Russia.
In short, the fact that some of these countries were former British colonies isn't a very strong predictive factor. Sure, the Brits had a penal code that made gay sex illegal. The interesting thing is why some contries have deliberately chosen, many years later, to retain it (or introduce it, in places which did not have it - like other former Euro-colonies).
Again there's the importance of Islam, which is mentioned in the article. Incidentally, in many former British colonies with a Muslim majority the British colonial law is still used - Pakistan for example just added a sharia-inspired offence for sodomy+kidnapping. Aside from that very few former Euro-colonies have banned homosexuality.
The problem with saying it's because the culture frowns on the gays, while it's surely part of it, is that I think it's begging the question. It doesn't explain why Sierra Leone and Ghana ban homosexuality, but Burkina Faso and Cote d'Ivoire don't. The same applies to Barbados against less developed non-British Caribbean islands. It seems particularly extraordinary in, say, Papua New Guinea that did have a culture which was more tolerant of sodomy.
Did the British Empire just happen to colonise the most virulently homophobic parts of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific?
QuoteWhat's the theory here - that the former Brit colonies just forgot the laws were on the books since decolonization? That's not what has happened. See India.
I think I'd say it's there's two things that could be going on.
Possibly there is an inertia and forgetfulness around the law. It's the definition of something that's a minority interest. As it affects relatively few people it's easy to ignore, or just not care about. I mean look at the decriminalisation of homosexuality in Britain. It happened in England in 1967, in Scotland in 1981, in Northern Ireland in 1982, by 1992 in all the Channel Islands and in the Isle of Man in 1994. Northern Ireland aside I don't think those areas were wildly more homophobic than England or parts of the US that had abolished the sodomy laws. I think they just didn't care very much.
This is, I think, sort of what's happened in, say, Singapore. The minister in charge actually sounded relatively sympathetic to the gays and I believe Singaporean society is generally pretty tolerant. But, he said it's a lot of work to repeal the law and the nuclear family is a core part of Singaporean values so they'll keep the prohibition - from the IPC - in place.
The other possibility is that the 19th century British jurists were right and law shapes culture. Sodomy received criminal punishment and far more opprobrium in the British Empire than other colonial empires for a century and it has lingered there longer. I can't think of any examples of Francophone African politicians declaring that 'homosexuality is unAfrican' in the way that is common in former British colonies - see Robert Mugabe, Daniel Arap Moi, the government of Zambia or the numerous politicians in Uganda.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Ethiopia
Though TBH looking through the article on LGBT rights in Africa there does seem to be a correlation between British colonization and stiff anti-sodomy laws, I think it's very strange that you assume that there wouldn't be anti-sodomy laws in India without British colonial influence given the history of Islamic domination of the subcontinent.
Quote from: Queequeg on December 17, 2013, 01:45:29 PMI think it's very strange that you assume that there wouldn't be anti-sodomy laws in India without British colonial influence given the history of Islamic domination of the subcontinent.
I don't assume that though :mellow:
My understanding though is that Islamic law was applied to Muslims and customary law to Hindus. The British were horrified by, in their view, the prevalence of beggars, catamites and eunuchs that were tolerated by Hindu society and it was linked, in their mind, to sodomy.
Edit:
QuoteThough TBH looking through the article on LGBT rights in Africa there does seem to be a correlation between British colonization and stiff anti-sodomy laws
Also the Americas and the Pacific islands.
I got in a pretty in-depth argument about this on FB with a gay expat friend in Russia.
I argued that some kind of Modernist attempt at enforcing internationalized (read; homophobic, prejudiced against non-reproductive sex) sexual norms was inevitable in the wake of the decolonization process. Southern China was never officially colonized by anyone, but the popular pederasty of Fujian province or elite homosexual practices all effectively died out between Sun Yat-sen and Deng Xiaoping.
I think in India you would have inevitably seen something similar. Idiosyncratic regional or caste approaches to sexuality would have dissolved in to a national consensus based on Western-educated elite opinions.
I eventually ended up defending Victorian mores, which is realistically how I spend maybe 20% of my time. I also generally resent the near-universal assumption of pre/non-Abrahamic non-homophobia, though I'm not accusing you of that.
Quote from: Queequeg on December 17, 2013, 02:10:33 PM
I eventually ended up defending Victorian mores, which is realistically how I spend maybe 20% of my time.
Tsk, tsk.