Greek Gays Battle Military Ban

[davidinalameda]

http://www.365gay.com/Newscon06/03/032906military.htm

A Greek LGBT rights group is demanding an end to what it calls a "fascist" regulation banning gays from the military. Greece is the only major European nation not to permit gays to serve - despite national conscription.

In 2002 a presidential decree was signed excluding from military service all persons "suffering from psycho-sexual or sexual identity disorders".

Athens-based Eok has filed an official discrimination complaint, pointing to the case of a man drummed out of the military for being gay who was unable to obtain a driver's license because his officials papers stated he suffered from a "mental disorder".

Discharge papers form part of a person's official documentation in Greece.

[texastoast]

1. I find this just a little historically ironic

Good thing this wasn't the rule during the Battle of Troy.:eyes:

[TechBear_Seattle]

2. Troy was never in Greece

It was in Asia Minor, and the Trojans were ethnically distinct from the Achaeans :hi:

A better comparison would be the hegemony of Sparta. It was their "army of lovers" that held off the Persians from conquering Greece and ultimately fostered democracy by keeping Athens in political isolation through the Peloponnesian Wars.

[Inland]

3. You are thinking of Thebes, the "Sacred Band".

Fostering democracy by beating Athens....well, that's another argument, although Athens did have both a democracy and an empire and has some relevance to our situation.

[TechBear_Seattle]

4. Nope, I'm thinking of Sparta

For about 150 years, Sparta dominated Hellenic culture. They were the main defense for Greece in the Persian Wars, which went from about 500 BCE to 448 BCE. After those wars, the alliance between Sparta and Athens turned to rivalry, with Sparta and their allies (the Pelopennesian League) defeating Athens and their allies (the Delian League) in a series of battles starting in 431 BCE and ending with the surrender of Athens in 404 BCE. Democracy developed in Athens during the Persian Wars, but it was the subsequent conflicts with Sparta and the humiliating defeat after the Pelopennesian War that fueled popular sentiment and fostered a distrust of authoritarianism.

Also, for much of its history as a superpower, Spartan men were not allowed to marry until they retired from universal, mandatory military service at about the age of 55. With the Hellenic attitudes of patriarchy, women were locked away at home, that meant most men spent their entire lives only in the company of other men. Social (and other) intercourse with women was strictly punished as a breakdown of military discipline. There are lots of contemporary writings of older men mentoring younger men as warriors, with the couple also being lovers and recognized as a couple. The fierceness and bravery of the Spartan army was credited to the men not wanting to discredit or dishonor their lovers on the field of battle; the phrase "An army of lovers can not fail" is a reference to the Spartan army. The use of the lambda as an early symbol of gay pride derives from Sparta's use of the lambda on their shields. (The actual name of the country was Lacedaemon; Sparta was the capitol city.)

[Inland]

5. No, Thebes.

Particularly if you use "Army of Lovers", which is a reference to Thebes's Sacred Band.

http://www.historytoday.com/dt_main_allatonce.asp?gid=13437&aid=&tgid=&amid=13437&g13437=x&g9929=x&g30026=x&g20991=x&g21010=x&g19965=x&g19963=x

Apparently, Plutarch used the phrase.

http://www.answers.com/topic/sacred-band-of-thebes

Whatever the role of homosexuality in Spartan life...and I'm going to hazard that it's hard to say definitively, Spartans not being big writers....the concept of mentoring and "a couple" are not the same. Homosexuality was considered mentoring in Athens, too, and a mentoring relationship is just that. Contrast the Sacred Band, which consisted of one hundred fifty homosexual couples. The fact is that if an assertion about couples and lovers in warfare is going to be made, it's better made about Thebes since it has an explicit organization around a homosexual pairing. Maybe the modern association with Sparta is because they won more, not because it's a better example.

[TechBear_Seattle]

8. Oops. Well, Sparta was involved

But you are correct, the phrase about an army of lovers was regarding Thebes, not Sparta.

In any case, Troy is not the best example, which was my point.

[Rowdyboy]

9. Hey, things got pretty hot in both Thebes and Sparta.....

"On the night of their wedding, Spartan wives were expected to lie in a dark room and dress as a man - presumably to help their husbands make the transition from homosexual to heterosexual love."

http://www.pbs.org/empires/thegreeks/background/19a_p1.html

"In cities such as Sparta and Thebes, there appeared to be a particularly strong emphasis on relationships between men and youths, and it was considered an important part of their education"

It certainly played ab important part in my education!

Thanks to both you guys for an interesting and civil disagreement that made me do a little research on my own.

[texastoast]

7. Right

But there were a few Greeks in the battle for the lovely Helen.

[xchrom]

10. well, there's achilles and patroklus.

while the war wasn't in greece -- those two hotties were at troy.

i'ld love to see big ol' achilles dressed as a woman trying to avoid being drafted by agamemnon.

[sui generis]

6. yikes - that's sad

Especially considering the "Band of Thebes" history of Greece, you'd think they'd have finally gotten past all that crap.

I suspect it's yet another relic of catholicism, this time not roman.

Well the STUPIDEST part of all of this . . . is that gays are already in the military and have been since the very dawn of recorded history.

Mental Disorder my fucking ass - and by the way, you like Gay Tourists spending money in Mykonos, that's okay, just not holding a gun next to you in the army. What a bunch of backwards ass crap.