Books facilitated by WAP

Cornell Series edited by Edward W. Fox

Note: I coauthored Age of Recovery and helped revise Ancient Israel and Heirs of The Roman Empire, and recruited the author of Age of Adversity.

The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln

C.A. Tripp

edited by Lewis Gannett, Introduction by Jean Baker

(Free Press, 2005)

Second Printing by Thunder's Mouth (2006), with a new "Critical Overview" by Gannett and me.

• Read Charley Shively's Rejected “Afterword”

• Lincoln, Scholars, and Sex by Lewis Gannett & William Percy

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Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context

(Haworth Gay & Lesbian Studies)

Vern L. Bullough

Judith M. Saunders

Sharon Valente

(Harrington Park Press, 2002)

This book illuminates the lives of the courageous individuals involved in the early struggle for gay and lesbian civil rights in the United States. Authored by those who knew them (often activists themselves), the concise biographies in this volume examine the lives of pre-1969 barrier breakers, including Harry Hay, Henry Gerber, Alfred Kinsey, Del Martin, Phyllis Lyon, Jim Kepner, Jack Nichols, Christine Jorgensen, Jose Sarria, Barbara Grier, Frank Kameny, and nearly 40 more.

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Same-Sex Desire and Love in Greco-Roman Antiquity and in the Classical Tradition of the West

Beert Verstraete and Vernon Provencal, eds.

Double Special Issue of the Journal of Homosexuality

Volume 49, Issue 3/4, 2005.

This book is intended to supplement, correct and challenge what has long been the standard work on the subject, Craig Williams' book on Roman homosexuality. Personally, I think that Williams handled the difficult interpretation of the Lex Scantinia better than Jim Boutrica, who contributed the longest aritcle to this collection and whose view the editors accepted, along with many others in the last decades, that the law outlawed sex between Roman citizens. Believing, as I do, in the great German scholars before Hitler and in Warren Johansson, that only the great Abrahamic religions inspired such laws, I cannot believe that the Romans ever had such a homophobic enactment. Because if they had, it would surely have been mentioned by Cicero and the other great lawyers and legislatures, whereas the best attestation that the modern scholars can cite is a prostitute's quip to a judge in Juvenal. The other most important work in this area, between Williams and Verstraete, is a brilliant anthology of translations, often made by the editor himself, and most astute commentaries, assembled by Thomas Hubbard. Eugene Rice, who is cannibalizing his great work - erudite beyond belief - by posting excerpts on the excellent online gay encyclopedia GLBTQ, of which there are seven Kabinettsstücke (each more scintillating the last: Hadrian, St. Paul,Patristic Writers, Sodomy, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Medieval Europe, Aelred of Rievaulx), in his Ancient Rome article writes, "The deep-seated prejudice against adult male passives distilled in formulas like servilis patientia (slave-like submission) and muliebris patientia (woman-like passivity) helps explain the provisions of the much debated lex Scantinia (mid-second century B.C.E.), the only Roman law directed against same-sex acts before the legislation of the Christian emperors in the fourth century C.E. Scraps of good evidence from Juvenal and Suetonius suggest that the law criminalized the two main prohibitions of the sexual code: the seduction of an underage freeborn boy [which I agree with] and the anal and oral submission of a Roman citizen to penetration by another male. [which I disagree with]"

So the argument on the Lex Scantinia has two opposing viewpoints. In sum, for the opinion that the Roman law did not forbid a Roman citizen to ever take the passive role in a homosexual, sit all the old Germans including Kiefer and Hirschfeld, Lilja, Williams, Johansson, and myself. Believing the opposite are Richlin, Cantarella, Rice, and Verstraete. Boutrica seems to straddle the question. The best arbitrator would have been Theodore Mommsen, Sr., with his unparalleled Römische Strafrecht, but without his living presence, we would do best to scrutinize his work.

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JUDAISM: the source of Western Homophobia

these are chapters from a book on Homophobic Judaism, a book in progress at the time of Warren Johansson's death:

Biblical Judaism 950.B.C.-40.B.C.

Hellenist Judaism from Herod the Great to the Mishnah 40 B.C.-200 A.D.

late-Hellenist Judaism from the Mishna to the death of Justinian 200 A.D.-565 A.D

The motto of the whole project is:
There was nothing left for St. Paul or St. Augustine or St. Thomas Aquinas to invent.