SODOMY:worse then Homicide-Suicide?(Anne Gardinar)

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    W ky DOES DANTE CONs idER SOdOMYW ORSE TkAN Horaicidr & Suicide?

    Dante's Divine Comedy, the most sublime reli-gious poem the Christian West has produced in twothousand years, provides us to this day with pro-found insights into human nature. In the InfernoDante provides us with a vivid, unforgettable imageof what Christians have always believed aboutsodomites. He places them in the seventh circle of

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    Hell, the fiery circle of the violent, far below the lust-ful heterosexuals of the second circle. Why this bigseparation? The answer is extremely important andrevealing. Dante wants us to understand that ho-mosexuals do not suffer in life from a deficiency ofthe will, as lustful heterosexuals do in failing to con-trol their natural urges. Rather they engage in awill-ful defiance of Nature. Indeed, Dan e resents themas violent against Nature.

    It is Dante's geography thatral meaning of his great poem. let us seethe sinners who are found abo 'chis Inferno - that is to sa}.lesser offenses. The realm of e e begins inthe second circle of Hell the -rs: . e is Limbo- a place of rest where irtuo - ... gans remainunpunished, but are depri eo' ision of Cod}.In the second circle, Dante j of lust-ful heterosexuals who are toss . e birdscaught in a storm. From thisfifth one, he meets intemperathe other. They all yielded toinstead of exercising restrain -:..:-0punished by natural things: air. vater mud. Thelife they chose was below the . ~._:'an calling ofa human being, but they are in es of incon-tinence, not violence, becau e \' e did wasnot malicious. Their penalty r e o ese - hat theychose: They subjected their .o er : rure to theirlower urges. And they died vi 0 _re enting. Sothe whirlwind of passion into .' .stful hetero-sexuals threw themselves in . 'e ._0'.; hips anddrives them forever through the air . Hell- the swillinto which the gluttons and sank envel-ops them without end; a pointl rage still drivesthe misers and spendthrifts to against eachother, while the wrathful an . en bear theirgrudges eternally in a muddy s ..am, _Dante, how-ever, sees no devils and no hellfire . ting theseweak sinners, only natural tonne

    After the circles of the in 0 . ent, Dantecomes to a wall surrounding the ee er circles ofHell, and this wall is guarded devils. Thesodomites are well below this wall. The point of .Dante's geography is that those ho fall below thefifth circle did not just yield to natural passion, butwere willfully rebellious against Cod's order, like thefallen angels who are watching on the walls. MerDante passes the gate of Dis, the first whom he

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    meets among the damned are those who insistedthat there was nothing beyond the grave. Ironically,they asserted that everything ends with death, yethere they are in the sixth circle, each consciouslyfixed in his fiery grave. This sixth circle provides atransition to the lower circles. For to go further downinto serious sin, it is necessary to delude oneself intobelieving that no eternal punishment awaits theunrepentant sinner after death.

    Dante finds the sodomites at the bottom ofthe seventh circle, a circle that contains three rings.Again, his geography is very revealing. In the topring of the seventh circle are those who killed forgain, whether in empire-building or in robbingtravelers on the highway. Appropriately enough,mass murderers such as Alexander are up to theireyebrows in boiling blood, while common robbersare only ankle deep. Below them in the second ringare those who committed suicide because they lostmoney, reputation, or status. They are below thehomicides, because they willfully violated the lawof self-preservation, an even more basic law of Na-ture than love of neighbor. Since they set a lowervalue on their life than on worldly additions to it,they are now deprived of their human form andreduced to thorny trees oppressed by nightmarishHarpies.

    But Dante places sodomy in the bottom-mostring of the seventh circle, below homicide and sui-cide, suggesting that this sin is an even worse formof violence. The implication here is that sodomyinvolves an even more thoroughgoing hostility toNature than defying the laws of self-preservation orlove of neighbor; that it is a culmination of vio-lence in being destructive to neighbor, violatingself-love, and at the same time undermining familyand community. Note that the suicides in the firstring damned themselves alone, while thesodomites damned themselves with others. There-fore, sodomites must run in a band forever on theburning plain. The burning sands on which theyrun represent their sterility. With this detail Danteshows that the intimacies of sodomy lead to a lackof posterity and put an end to one's family line.The sodomites, as represented by Dante's friendBrunetto Latini, chose continuity through fame,not through children. Brunetto points out that themen in his company were all famous scholars andliterary celebrities who raised themselves in the

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    eyes of the world by their talents while they draggedone another down into Hell. Thus, they sum upthe previous rings: They were violent both to oth-ers and themselves in that they destroyed their ownsouls and that of one another, and they were vio-lent to family life by their choice of sterility.

    Thus, Dante reveals that sodomy has wide so-cial ramifications that go beyond homicide and sui-cide. The sodomites are on the same burning sandsas the blasphemers - those who are violent againstGod - because they were equally destructive of thecommunity. Just as the blasphemers assaulted thefaith of the people, so the sodomites assaulted fam-ily life, and both of these are foundations of the com-munity, one spiritual and one natural.Now, the punishment for sin in the Infemo rep-resents exactly what the sinner obstinately choseduring life. So it is important to note that Dante seesthe sodomites running in a company, notpairedlikethe lustful heterosexuals of the second circle. Heimplies that sodomy involves not couples, but a largepool of sexual partners. And when Dante asks

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    Brunetto about the most famous men in his com-pany, it is the sodomite himself who speaks of hisfellows with contempt as a "wretched mob" made"filthy in the world," giving us a glimpse of the self-loathing and the contempt of sexual partners thataccompanies this sin.

    Dante gives us an insight into sodomy whenhe reveals that these sinners cannot stand still for aminute (because of the burning sand), but mustkeep 'running perpetually. Besides their endless,compulsive running in circles, the sodomites sufferfrom another affliction with respect to their hands:While talking, Brunetto and his fellow sodomitesconstantly move their hands jerkily to brush off theflakes of fire that rain on them, like the fire inSodom. These expressive details point to a compul-sive, violent restlessness. For in the Infemo, the pen-alty holds a mirror to the sin itself, to show how itmanifested itself in life.

    Dante indicates that sodomy involves perpetualmotion and a bondage to a large group of like-minded sinners. One may easily deduce what Dantewould say about same-sex "marriage." He would callit a delusion, and any law establishing it a violenceagainst Nature. For marriage involves a pair, is natu-ral , is open to children and the future, and builds upcommunity. But sodomy, as Dante shows in the In-femo, is forever restless and unrooted (same-sex

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    "committed" partnerships almost always allow foroutside sexual liaisons), involves partners bound inmutual contempt, and is inimical to the ultimatesurvival of families and societies. This is why Danteplaces sodomy so far below heterosexual lust, andeven below the homicides and suicides, at the verybottom rung of the seventh circle of the "Violent."

    Now, the sodomites of the seventh circle areconsensual adults. So where would Dante placepedophiles and pederasts in the Inferno? Very likely,ifhe had included them, he would have put them farbelow the sodomites. After the circle of the violent,the poet comes to a great abyss which he musttraverse to reach the lowest circles of fraud. Thefrauds are grouped in two circles: the simple fraudsin the eighth, the compound frauds in the ninth.Both types of frauds misused their intelligence andpremeditated evilwords or deeds' but the compoundfrauds, such as Judas, are the lowest sinners of all,because besides being frauds, they violated a closebond or trust.

    It seems logical that Dante would placepedophiles and pederasts among the compoundfrauds in the ice of the ninth circle not far from Sa-tan, supposing of course that they remained unre-pentant to the end. Their icy punishment would re-flect how clear-sighted and cold-hearted they were.Dante .does not see them as weak or hotly defiantagainst God and Nature. Rather he sees them ashighly perceptive and exercising a merciless con-tempt for others, tricking and manipulating themfor their own sordid purposes. Pedophiles andpederasts belong with the sinners of the ninth circlein that they had to betray a sacred trust, such as thefather-child bond or the host-guest relationship. Andthey also had to use fraud to entice one whose trustand innocence called for protection.

    Dante cuts through the cant, illusion, andglamour that surrounds sin in any age, but espe-cially ours, and he holds up a mirror to damnablevice. Would that he were alive today.

    Anne Barbeau GardinerAnne Barbeau Gardiner is Professor Emerita of En-glish at John Jay College of the City University ofNew York. She is author, most recently, of AncientFreedom and Modem Faith in John Dryden's TheHind and the Panther (Catholic University of