In an unearthed letter to his mother, from 1935, Sigmund Freud wrote "Homosexuality is assuredly no advantage, but it is nothing to be ashamed of, no vice, no degradation; it cannot be classified as an illness; we consider it to be a variation of the sexual function, produced by a certain arrest of sexual development. Many highly respectable individuals of ancient and modern times have been homosexuals, several of the greatest men among them. (Plato, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, etc). It is a great injustice to persecute homosexuality as a crime - and a cruelty, too."

I think he said much the same thing in published writings. Will rummage and report.

Interesting how his offhand and non-condemnatory "arrested development" hypothesis was clutched onto by subsequent of his followers as a diagnosis of pathology, when he clearly was saying the opposite.

In this respect, the deciders about the DSM who finally reclassified us are not much in advance of the Church's only 500-years-late pardon of Galileo.

Yes it is no crime... Time is changing. I think as we got rid of slavery we will get rid of discrimination for gays too. It just takes time. I'm at a society where Confucian ideas are strong. What I don't get is rich women looking down other people based on one's education, family background and social status. That kind of mindset brought strong poverty to the country just less than hundred years ago here yet they couldn't let go of it. I am not sure how this kind of bias get hold of people but I suspect that it is because they are used to it and it gives them strength for their status quo.

What gay community need is people who can be light and salt in this world. As long as we are strong and able to show that we can function as a responsible members of our society we will be able to get rid of bias. Positive things we do save lives and bring change...

Well I think either Plato or Socrates didn't fully accept homosexuality since they seem to agree with the common norm at that time that passive homosexual act is demeaning and unacceptable... After all, the Ancient Greeks didn't fully accepting homosexuality. They looked down on grown up men who took passive role.

I would not be happy with either Socrates or Plato as my husband who thought like that. Glad I was not born in Ancient Greece.

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/27/opinion/l-plato-on-homosexuality-238493.html