06/05/2021
Napoleon Bonaparte died on May 5th in 1821. The Gay Pagan blog at the AntinousGayGod website notes that Bonaparte was the first modern European ruler to decriminalise consenting homosexual acts. For this reason, the modern Cult of Antinous hails Napoleon as a gay saint. Whether Bonaparte would have been flattered by this adulation is not known. However, the cult of Antinous is quite correct in noting that the defeat of the French Empire at the hands of the British at Waterloo set European history backwards. Several British gay historians have noted that the criminal Code Napoleane had no prohibition on same sex desire and that for the UK's gay men it was probably a disaster that the Brits won Waterloo. Who knows what might have been in European history by now had Napoleon's legal code been implemented across the continent? Euronews added that President of the current French Republic Emmanuel Macron had praised Napoleon but also ackolwledged the less progressive aspects of his character, such as his militarism and his misogyny.
