The Renaissance, in Europe, happened between the 15th and 16th centuries. Before this time, homosexuality was completely legal across most of Europe.
But thanks to the Roman Catholic Church, during the Renaissance era, it went from being completely legal to incurring the death penalty in most European countries.
For example, if you were a gay man living in France, if you were caught having homosexual relations with a same sex partner, both of you would lose your testicles. Second offenders would lose their entire genitals, and third offenders would be burned in the public square.
But the Catholic Church didn't think this went near far enough. In fact, they used every resource they had at the time to push for harsher punishments across the entire continent.
During the Spanish Inquisition, in 1480, being gay meant you were stoned, castrated and burned. Historians estimate that between 1540 and 1700 AD, more than 1600 people were prosecuted for sodomy.
But in 1532 the Holy Roman Empire made sodomy punishable by death, which many European countries followed.
In England, King Henry VIII passed the Buggery Act of 1533, which made sodomy against the law and punishable by death.
In the Buggery Act, it defines sodomy as anyone who engages in anal penetration, bestiality or sex between same sex partners.
Yet again in history, homosexuality was put right alongside something completely different than homosexuality, and this repetitive definition contributed to many believing homosexuality was a mental illness, when it is clearly not.
The Renassaince & The Buggery Act - Homophobia boomed in the XVI Century
*
Comentários