We’ve had our Phill of prejudice...
heterosexuality can be traced back since the dawn of time.
There have always been alternatives to the perceived Western “norm”, yet it was even as recently as 1970s Ireland, anything other than being heterosexual was a point of difference.
It was the missionaries and diplomats who recorded in travel journals tales of alternate sexual preferences. It was organised religion which attempted to
Leo Varadkar stamp out free sexual orientation. Most historians agree there is evidence of homosexual activity and same-sex love in every documented culture. Whether such relationships were accepted or persecuted is another matter. The continual hostility towards this natural tendency made entire populations dream up the idea of a sexual divide. You daren’t admit you had different sexual feelings to the “norm” for fear you’d be ostracised or worse.
We know that homosexuality existed in ancient Israel, simply because it was banned in the Bible, whereas it flourished between both men and women in ancient Greece.
Substantial evidence also exists for individuals who lived at least part of their lives as a different gender than assigned at birth.
There are consistent records to suggest that Alexander the Great, who reigned in Macedon until 323 BC, had relationships with both men and women.
When Europeans explored the globe they were shocked when they encountered Native America, North African and Pacific Islander cultures, who accepted the Two-spirit people or same-sex couples.
It was the Western invaders who objected to any deviation from their enforced traditional male and female laws.
Sigmund Freud was the first to claim all human beings are born “innately” bisexual.
He based this on the fact that in the womb, human babies are hermaphroditic – but that most become mono-sexual over the course of development.
This concept goes way further back than even Freud.
In Homer’s famous Greek classic The Iliad, it’s implied that Achilles has relationships with women and his friend and sparring partner Patroclus, and this isn’t depicted as particularly unusual.
In Japan, same-sex relationships were allegedly common among the famous Samurai.
Once married the warriors would ditch their male companions but still remain friends.
Phillip’s admission centuries later, may even help to forge a better and more equal future.
The Dancing on Ice presenter asked the public to be compassionate on social media and the faithful stood by him.
It proved we are finally a lot more accepting of all ways of life sexual or otherwise and so it should be.
The star has paved the way for more openness in a dawn where same-sex marriage is finally here and where the persecution of the past is slowly dying.