The unnamed sin

Homosexual practice has traditionally prompted severe condemnation from the Christian church. Indeed, it became known as the sin ‘inter christiani non nominandum’. Such thinking has long informed public opinion and the law in many countries including the United States, where legislation, enacted in the seventeenth century, made it punishable by death in some places. Although homosexual practice ceased to be a capital offence in the nineteenth century, only very recent legislation has mitigated the harshness of the law on homosexual behaviour. The reasons why people across such a broad social spectrum and over such a long period of time have had such a deep aversion to homosexual practice are no doubt very complex. Underlying them all perhaps is the sense that anyone who engages in what seem to the majority to be deeply ‘unnatural’ acts is ultimately capable of betraying any of the foundational values for which their society stands. The very strength of this prejudice makes homosexuality difficult to trace until comparatively recently. Those who recognized homosexual needs within themselves either repressed them for fear of the consequences of expressing them, or were very careful about seeking to satisfy them. Thus, although it is commonly believed that the proportion of homosexuals in the population has remained roughly consistent, evidence concerning actual practice remained sparse until the period of so-called ‘gay liberation’ after the Second World War.