Another 1 billion people on the planet are free to have gay sex. The high court in Delhi, India ruled yesterday that gay sex between consenting adults was legal. They overturned a 148 year old British colonial law which outlawed 'unnatural sex acts'. Religious factions in India have already spoken against the ruling, so the battle isn't over. Maybe the high court were influenced by the high profile gay Alexander the Great who invaded the country 2,500 years ago. "Continue reading" to see what the India Times wrote about him yesterday.
Ladies, gentlemen and queens — I present Alexander the Great, who commanded his first battles while only 16 went on to conquer the entire known world, leading his troops from the mountains of northern Greece all the way to the mountains of northern India. He subdued every opponent in his path, from the Greek city states to the kingdoms of North Africa, Asia Minor and Persia. His relentlessness in battle, often tempered by his magnanimity to the vanquished, was legendary. But so was his devotion to his friends and companions, and the love which he shared almost exclusively with his male peers starting in tender childhood.
Not only did Alexander have love affairs with boys, but above them all was his love for a man his own age, his childhood friend Hephaestion. This relationship resembled modern gay love and became legendary for its passion. The love story of Alexander the Great and Hephaestion is practically the equivalent of Romeo and Juliette for modern day gay couples. The love between them never waned. Alexander saw their love as emulating that heroic love between Achilles and Patroclus, another ancient couple that modern gay couples can look to as an example of devotion. Crossing into Asia on their way to Persia, the two halted their campaign in Illium by the ruins of Troy. There Alexander sacrificed and offered garlands at the shrine of Achilles, while Hephaestion did the same at the shrine of Patroclus. Following the ancient custom, Alexander ran naked around the hero’s tomb, proclaiming his admiration for Achilles, “fortunate in life to have so faithful a friend, and in death to have so famous a poet”.
The other great male love of Alexander’s life that we know about was the eunuch Bagoas, a beautiful boy, a gift from the generals of King Darius of Persia. Bagoas was a eunuch of exceptional beauty and in the very flower of boyhood, with whom Darius was intimate and with whom Alexander would later be intimate. The stormy, outspoken character of the boy matched his stunning looks and the friendship and love which grew between him and the warrior king lasted the rest of their lives. Alexander saw to it that his young beloved was well provided for. Alexander also out of his love appointed Bagoas as one of the “trierarchs”, men of substance who oversaw and funded the construction of the navy for the journey homeward. Historians have documented the fact that Alexander often took Bagoas in his arms and kissed him in front of his troops.
However, Bagoas’s new love in no way affected the deep devotion which bound Alexander to Hephaestion, which was itself famous throughout Ancient Greece. Philosophers often taunted Alexander that he was “ruled by Hephaestion’s thighs”...their love story came to an end and their love was undone only by Hephaestion’s death during the summer festivities at Ecbatana (in Persia) on their way home from India.
When Hephaestion died it is said that Alexander lay upon his corpse for a day and a night and finally had to be dragged off by his friends. For another three days he remained mute, in tears, fasting. When he rose he sheared off all his hair and ordered all the ornaments in the city broken off the walls and the manes and tails of all the horses sheared. He forbade all music in the city and ordered every town in the empire to carry out mourning rituals. Then he sent envoys to Ammon’s oracle at the oasis of Siwah in Egypt to ask that divine honors be granted to his dead friend. The body of Hephaestion was embalmed and carried on to Babylon, where it was cremated on a pyre, in a funeral on which he planned to spend astronomical sums. Along with the death of his most beloved, little did Alexander know that Babylon was to become his final stop as well. Forced to stay in the town through the hot, mosquito-ridden summer months, he took sick and died after a short illness. Alexander was only 33 years old.
Friends, basically sexuality is a part of you. Whether God made you straight/gay doesn’t matter ... what matters is what you have achieved and done ... people should remember you with pride, inspiration and love even centuries after you are gone. That is more important.
Times of India 1/7/09, sent in by Amer
