And the world would be a so much better place. Coffee’s too good for them. Let them drink Nescaff. 
Tamerlane, I’d just like to congratulate you on your excellent knowledge of Greek and Ottoman history. I’d say you’re pretty much spot on.
There is a lot of similarity between Greek and Turkish culture (especially around the Med) but this is because the two cultures have intermixed, not because the Ottomans imposed theirs on the Greeks. (It’s not quite as clear cut as that, but the point mainly stands).
Three other points:
It might interest you all to know that the Greek attitude to male-to-male penetration / being penetrated seems to be still around. Only the latter makes you a card-carrying homosexual - at least according to several young Greeks I’ve talked to.
Yes, the Greek lawyers are daft to sue. The Greeks are a fiercely proud bunch and the whole Alexander / Macedonia issue is one that lights their fuses (I discovered this in spectacular fashion when I tried to discuss it with a classroom of 15 year olds!). There are obvious negative aspects to this, but it is also part and parcel of what makes them such a fascinating bunch.
And lastly - Turkish (or Greek, Serbian etc. etc.) coffee is great. I still haven’t figured out how they make one tiny cup last 3 hours, though.
Heh, same happened to me during a GLBT sensitivity training session I did for a class of which a substantial minority was Greek. That was … delicate.
So just change the title of the movie to Alexander the Fabulous and be done with it.
Patty, I’m now going to have that new title stuck in my head. I’ll be sure to ask for it by that name when I buy my ticket! 
A bleach-blond Colin Farrell is not gay enough?
I think that’s the name of the Pixar version (with an Elton John soundtrack, Richard Simmons as the voice of Alexander, Harvey Fierstein as the voice of Aristotle and Ellen Degeneres reprising her role as Dory the Goldfish)
I am not aware about any “new-school” Christianity or Islam that approve of same-sex. It appears from history that hostility to same-sex goes together with Monotheism.
Considering that all of the major monotheistic religions of the last 2000-odd years spring from the same basic tradition (and share that single god), this isn’t surprising. Because of that shared heritage, Judaism, Christianity and Islam combined count as one (1) data point.
In other words, there simply isn’t enough data to determine whether “hostility to same-sex goes together with Monotheism,” since we only have one basic monotheism to study.
Well the Epispicol Church approved the election of Rev. Canon Gene Robinson, an openly homosexual man. The Quakers have same-sex commitment ceremonies. The Unitarian Univeralists are welcoming to homosexuals. The United Methodists are moving, haltingly, towards acceptance.
Now you do.
And the United Church of Canada, this country’s largest Protestant denomination, has being performing same-sex unions for many years, and has been pushing for legalization of same-sex marriage for some time now.
Even so, I think it is a valid statement that as that same Monotheism was spreading over new lands, converted people were turning hostile toward same-sex liasons.
No problem. I regroup at the citadel of “No new-school Islam” and taunt you and matt_mcl again from there.
It is a valid statement. But it doesn’t mean anything. Even with billions of people converted and currently hostile toward same-sex liaisons, it’s still only one data point.
Which might still be not all that unusual in modern Army. Gore Vidal described rampant same-sex in US Army during WWII, for example. What was really different in modern times, it was all those preachers in Churches and elsewhere denouncing that. In short, the difference between BC and AD morals was a Doctrine of Sin, which ancients seemed to be free of.
To most of the ancients (Jews being the exception) there was a separation between moral codes and religion. Zeus and Osiris and Ishtar weren’t exactly who you’d turn to for moral guidance- that was more the province of the state, so there wasn’t the threat of eternal damnation to reinforce it. (Plus, most ancients believed in some variation of the homunculus theory of conception- the man literally spirted a teeny weeny human into a woman who served as incubator- her role in conception was minimal- thus “every sperm is sacred” really was a belief and when you had non procreative sex you were killing itty bitty babies; while it’s difficult to condemn masturbation [which every physically and mentally healthy male who’s ever lived has done with frequency] and get a following, it became easier to condemn homo-sex which most men haven’t tried or desired with regularity.)
Great point!
Most fascinating. Brings to mind my father, lecturing me “What you put in a woman, that’s what she bears…” Even in my young clueless stage that was a bit too much to accept.
They’ve been having a bit of a row over that, actually. Technically, the ancient region of Macedonia and the current country’s boundaries and ethnic makeup weren’t precisely the same, so there is a northern part of Greece called Macedonia, and a country that was known as I think the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and which the USA now recognizes just as Macedonia, which has pissed Greece off to no end. Personally, to Alexander, the question would have been more or less immaterial, because he would have thought of it just as the Hellenic World.
By coincidence, I’ve lately been reading Will Durant’s Life of Greece and recently completed the section on Alexander. I have been surprised throughout at how frank (if somewhat understated) Durant’s treatment of the notion of homosexual love between A & H is, along with men throughout Greek history generally, and Sappho of Lesbos, naturally. Considering the book was written in the early 40s I had expected the concept to be brushed on soooooo lightly as to be almost unnoticeable, assuming it made it into print at all.
It was not a sensitive subject at all back then. They didn’t have to deal with PC mania in the 1940-s. Homosexuality was freely discussed in historical treatises since ancient times.