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Public Discourses
About Homosexuality
and Religion in Europe
and Beyond
Edited by
Marco Derks · Mariecke van den Berg
Public Discourses About Homosexuality
and Religion in Europe and Beyond
Marco Derks · Mariecke van den Berg
Editors
Public Discourses
About Homosexuality
and Religion
in Europe and Beyond
Editors
Marco Derks Mariecke van den Berg
The Hague, The Netherlands Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
ISBN 978-3-030-56325-7 ISBN 978-3-030-56326-4 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56326-4
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Chapters 2 and 8 are licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). For further details
see license information in the chapters.
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
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Acknowledgments
This volume is a result of the research project “Contested Privates: The

Oppositional Pairing of Religion and Homosexuality in Contemporary
Public Discourse in the Netherlands” (2013–2018), which was funded by
the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) under Grant
327-25-004. This project was a collaboration between the Amsterdam
Center for the Study of Lived Religion and the Utrecht Chair of Religion
and Gender, with Ruard Ganzevoort and Anne-Marie Korte as project
leaders. We would like to thank both for their enthusiasm in initiating
and developing this project, which encouraged us as co-investigators to
explore different perspectives, theories, cases, and approaches. We have
enjoyed the informal and dedicated way in which they have managed
this project, which created a congenial atmosphere for fruitful, in-depth
exchange, with two sessions of “Nerd Camp” in Hirschfeld, Germany,
as absolute highlights. Other co-investigators in this project were David
Bos as postdoctoral researcher and Srdjan Sremac as affiliated postdoctoral
researcher. We would like to thank them, too, for being part of this intel-
lectual journey. Although contracts have ended and project reports have
been written, research projects never really end thanks to the many spin-
offs and new questions they generate. On October 26–28, 2017, we orga-
nized the conference “Contested Privates: Religion and Homosexuality in
Public Discourse” in Utrecht; modified versions of five papers presented
at that conference have been included in this volume (Chapters 3, 5–7,
and 12).
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The chapter by Ad de Bruijne is a fully revised version of an earlier essay

in the Dutch journal Religie & Samenleving (2016); the chapter by Paul
Mepschen is a slightly revised version of an earlier chapter in National
Politics and Sexuality in Transregional Perspective: The Homophobic Argu-
ment, edited by Achim Rohde, Christina von Braun, and Stefanie Schüler-
Springorum (Routledge, 2018); and the chapter by Magda Dolińska-
Rydzek and Mariecke van den Berg is a slightly revised version of a chapter
in Religious and Sexual Nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe: Gods,
Gays and Governments, edited by Srdjan Sremac and Ruard Ganzevoort
(Brill, 2015). We would like to thank the editors or publishers for granting
permission to reissue these publications.
This publication was made possible by financial support of the Nether-
lands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), the Van Coeverden
Adriani Stichting, and the Research Institute of Philosophy and Religious
Studies, Utrecht University, The Netherlands.
We would like to thank Phil Getz and Amy Invernizzi at Palgrave
Macmillan for their dedicated and professional assistance and Edward
Jacobson (Vuurtoren Editing) for his excellent work proofreading the
entire manuscript.
Contents
1 Public Discourses About Homosexuality and Religion

in Europe and Beyond: An Introduction 1
Marco Derks and Mariecke van den Berg
2 Hellish Evil, Heavenly Love: A Long-Term History

of Same-Sex Sexuality and Religion in the Netherlands 21
David J. Bos
3 Sexuality, Religion, and Education: (Re)Production

of Culturalist Discourse in Sexual Diversity Education
in the Netherlands 59
Koen Rutten and Dana Theewis
4 A Postprogressive Nation: Homophobia, Islam,

and the New Social Question in the Netherlands 81
Paul Mepschen
5 Culture Wars About Sexuality: A Theological Proposal

for Dialogue 105
Ad de Bruijne
vii
viii CONTENTS
6 Queering Judaism and Masculinist Inventions:

German Homonationalism Around 1900 125
Ulrike Brunotte
7 Antisemitism and Homophobia in Polish Liberal

Discourses: The Cultural Logic of Comparison
and a Proposal for Intersectionality 147
Roberto Kulpa
8 The Changing Relation Between Sexual and Gender

Minorities and Religion in Finland: Some
Observations in the Light of Postsecularity 171
Peter Nynäs, Eetu Kejonen, and Pieter Vullers
9 Debating Homosexuality in Italy: Plural Religious

Voices in the Public Sphere 197
Alberta Giorgi
10 The Ultraconservative Agenda Against Sexual Rights

in Spain: A Catholic Repertoire of Contention
to Reframe Public Concerns 219
Monica Cornejo-Valle and J. Ignacio Pichardo
11 The Catholic Opposition to Gender and Sexual

Equality in France: Reviving the Traditional
Condemnation of Homosexuality During the Debates
on Marriage for All? 241
Céline Béraud
12 Ecce Homo in Sweden and Serbia: State, Church,

and Blasphemy 261
Danica Igrutinović and Mariecke van den Berg
13 “Gays as a Weapon of the Antichrist”: Religious

Nationalism, Homosexuality, and the Antichrist
on the Russian Internet 285
Magda Dolińska-Rydzek and Mariecke van den Berg
CONTENTS ix
14 The Empire Speaks Back: Zambian Responses

to European Union LGBTI Rights Diplomacy 309
Adriaan van Klinken and Emmanuel Phiri
15 Conservative Islamic Forces, Global LGBT Rights,

and Anticipatory Homophobia in Indonesia 325
Hendri Yulius Wijaya
Index 349
Notes on Contributors
Céline Béraud is a professor at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences

Sociales, Paris, France. A sociologist of religion and gender, she has
written several journal articles, chapters, and books on these topics,
such as “ ‘Mariage pour tous’: The Same-Sex Marriage Controversy in
France,” in The Intimate: Polity and the Catholic Church, edited by Karel
Dobbelaere and Alfonso Pérez-Agote (Leuven University Press, 2015);
and Métamorphoses catholiques: Acteurs, enjeux et mobilisations depuis le
mariage pour tous (Éditions de la MSH 2015; with Philippe Portier).
David J. Bos is a lecturer in sociology at the Faculty of Social and
Behavioural Sciences, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. He
obtained an M.A. in Theology at Groningen University and a Ph.D. in
Sociology at the University of Amsterdam. His publications include an
anthology of interviews with and essays by Michel Foucault (Woelrat,
1985) and Servants of the Kingdom: Professionalization Among Ministers
of the Nineteenth-Century Netherlands Reformed Church (Brill, 2010). As
a postdoc, he conducted research on the social acceptance of homosexu-
ality (at The Netherlands Institute for Social Research) and on the oppo-
sitional pairing of religion and homosexuality in Dutch public discourse
(at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam). His other research interests include
the social history of “bad prayer” in the modern era.
Ulrike Brunotte is an associate professor at the Faculty of Arts and
Social Sciences, Maastricht University, The Netherlands, adjunct professor
xi
xii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
at Humboldt-University Berlin, Germany, and chair of the international

research network “Gender in Antisemitism, Orientalism and Occiden-
talism.” Her publications, as author or editor, include Internal Outsiders,
Imagined Orientals: Antisemitism, Colonialism and Modern Construc-
tions of Jewish Identity (Ergon, 2017); Orientalism, Gender, and the Jews:
Literary and Artistic Transformations of European National Discourses
(De Gruyter, 2015); and Zwischen Eros und Krieg: Männerbund und
Ritual in der Moderne (Wagenbach, 2004). She is coeditor of the book
series “Diskurs Religion” (Ergon).
Monica Cornejo-Valle is an associate professor in the Department of
Social Anthropology and Social Psychology at the Complutense Univer-
sity of Madrid, Spain. She is director of the research group Anthro-
pology, Diversity, and Integration. She has authored and edited several
books (e.g., La Construcción Antropológica de la Religión, Ministerio
de Cultura, 2008) and has contributed to several edited volumes (e.g.,
Gender and Power in Contemporary Spirituality, edited by Anna Fedele
and Kim E. Knibbe [Routledge, 2014]). With Ignacio Pichardo, she has
coauthored “From the Pulpit to the Streets: Religious Activism against
Gender Issues in Spain,” in Anti-Gender Campaigns in Europe, edited
by David Paternotte and Roman Kuhar (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017);
“Une décennie de croisade anti-genre en Espagne (2004–2014)” (Revue
Sextant, 2015); and “La ideología de género frente a los derechos sexuales
y reproductivos” (Cadernos Pagu, 2017).
Ad de Bruijne is professor of ethics and spirituality at the Theological
University Kampen, The Netherlands. His research concentrates on public
theology, the place of the church in post-Christendom societies, and
sexual ethics.
Marco Derks is an independent scholar and the executive secretary of
The Netherlands School for Advanced Studies in Theology and Reli-
gion (NOSTER). Having studied theology at the Theological University
Kampen (doctorandus ) and the University of Manchester (M.Phil.), he
received his Ph.D. from Utrecht University in 2019 with a dissertation
on Constructions of Homosexuality and Christian Religion in Contempo-
rary Public Discourses in the Netherlands. His main research interests are
queer theology/biblical studies, radical theologies, and the study of reli-
gion, (post)secularism, sexuality, and gender. He has published in, e.g.,
Biblical Interpretation, Culture and Religion, International Journal of
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xiii
Public Theology, Theology & Sexuality, and several edited volumes, and
he has coedited five special journal issues. He also serves as cochair of the
Gay Men and Religion Unit of the American Academy of Religion.
Magda Dolińska-Rydzek holds an M.A. in International Relations:
European Studies and a B.A. in International Relations: Eastern European
Studies. During her studies, Magda has not only published on themes
related to eschatology and apocalypticism, which were her main research
interests, but also participated in numerous conferences and seminars. In
November 2018, she defended her dissertation entitled The Antichrist in
Russia: Transformations of an Ideomyth at the Insitut für Slavistik, Justus-
Liebig Universität in Giessen, Germany, with the result summa cum laude.
Currently, Magda is working on a book based on her dissertation. She also
translates Russian contemporary literature into Polish.
Alberta Giorgi is an assistant professor of sociology at the University
of Bergamo, Italy. Her research focuses on religion and politics, and
on secularism, gender, and religion. She is a member of the interna-
tional research groups GSRL, CRAFT, and POLICREDOS, and she
is vice-coordinator of the research stream Political Sociology of the
European Sociological Association. She took part in the ERC-funded
project “GRASSROOTSMOBILISE: Directions in Religious Pluralism
in Europe.” Her publications include European Culture Wars and the
Italian Case: Which Side Are You On? (Routledge, 2016; with Luca
Ozzano); “Quand l’égalité des sexes est devenue ‘idéologie du genre’?
L’étrange cas du Portugal,” in Campagnes anti-genre en Europe: des mobil-
isations contre l‘égalité, edited by Roman Kuhar and David Paternotte
(Presses universitaires de Lyon, 2018); and “Introduction: Is Secularism
Bad for Women?” Social Compass 64, no. 4 (2017): 449–80 (with Kristin
Aune, Mia Lövheim, Teresa Toldy, Terhi Utriainen).
J. Ignacio Pichardo is an associate professor in the Social Anthropology
Department, vice-dean for international affairs at the Faculty of Social
Work, and co-director of the Anthropology, Diversity and Integration
Research Group at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain. He
holds a Ph.D. in social anthropology from the Universidad Autónoma
de Madrid. His research projects focus on issues of kinship, family, sexu-
ality, gender, and interculturality. He has completed and published various
investigations into sexual diversity, lesbian women and human rights,
xiv NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
gay and lesbian families, and, particularly, the situation of gay, lesbian,
bisexual, and trans adolescents in educational environments.
Danica Igrutinović is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Media and
Communications, Singidunum University, Belgrade, Serbia. After gradu-
ating from the Department of English Language and Literature at the
Philological Faculty, University of Belgrade in 2005, she received her
M.Phil. (2008) at the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Novi
Sad, where she also defended her Ph.D. thesis Figures of the Material
and the Carnal in Shakespeare’s Tragedies and Problem Plays (2014). She
was a researcher in the regional project Representation of Gender Minority
Groups in Media: Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia funded by RRPP—
University of Fribourg. Her research interests focus on the intersection of
religion/philosophy and gender/sexuality/politics in literature and media
discourse.
Eetu Kejonen is an independent scholar. He received his Th.D. from
Åbo Akademi University, Turku, Finland, in 2014. In his dissertation, he
charted the teachings on homosexuality of two Finnish Lutheran revivalist
movements. In recent years, he has analyzed lived experiences of LGBTQ
members of certain Finnish revivalist movements and issues concerning
Finnish Lutheranism and LGBTQ persons. He has been a member of the
research project “Embodied Religion” (funded by University of Helsinki
& Academy of Finland, 2015–2017).
Roberto Kulpa is a lecturer in sociology at the University of Plymouth,
United Kingdom. He is interested in the transnational sexual politics,
nationhood, and nonnormative identities as interlocked with discourses
of geography and temporality, and Europeanization. He is also concerned
with the critical epistemologies of knowledge production in social and
cultural studies, especially in the contexts of the hegemonic geogra-
phies (“West and the Rest”) under neoliberal regimes of “instant truths.”
Recently, he has been reading into “friendship” and developing ques-
tions concerning well-being, resilience, and resistance, as individual and
group modi operandi during precarious times. He is the coeditor of De-
Centering Western Sexualities: Central and Eastern European Perspectives
(Ashgate, 2011) among other publications.
Paul Mepschen is an assistant professor of anthropology at University
College Utrecht (UCU), The Netherlands. A social anthropologist by
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xv
training, he has been working on questions relating to cultural poli-

tics, sexual practices, and subjectivity. Recently, he finished an ethno-
graphic study on culturalist representations and boundary construction
in Amsterdam. The project focuses on difference and the everyday poli-
tics of home. His interests include interconnections of racism, nation-
alism, and sexuality; secularism; Islamophobia; urban politics; populism
and neoliberalism.
Peter Nynäs is professor of comparative religion and dean of the Faculty
of Arts, Psychology, and Theology, at Åbo Akademi University, Turku,
Finland. He directed the Åbo Akademi University Centre of Excellence
in Research “Young adults and religion in a global perspective” (2015–
2019), a cross-cultural, comparative, and mixed-method study of religious
subjectivities and values in ten countries around the world. He previously
led the Centre of Excellence in Research “Post-secular Culture and a
Changing Religious Landscape in Finland” (2010–2014). He is the editor
of On the Outskirts of ‘the Church’: Diversities, Fluidities and New Spaces
of Religion in Finland (LIT Verlag, 2015; with Ruth Illman and Tuomas
Martikainen), Religion, Gender and Sexuality in Everyday Life (Ashgate,
2012; with Andrew Yip) and Transforming Otherness (Transaction 2011;
with Jason Finch).
Emmanuel Phiri is a lecturer in the Department of Philosophy and
Applied Ethics at the University of Zambia. He is a Canon Collins
Scholar and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. with the University of Stel-
lenbosch, South Africa. He is also a Beit-Trust Scholar and holds an
M.A. in biomedical and healthcare ethics from the University of Leeds,
United Kingdom. His Ph.D. research endeavors to give a defense of
the liberal public/private dichotomy with regards to sexual orientation,
using Zambia as a case study. His particular interests lie within polit-
ical liberalism and how this may be applied to tackle criminalization and
discrimination against non-heterosexual persons.
Koen Rutten holds a M.Sc. in regional and urban planning studies from
the London School of Economics and Political Science, United Kingdom.
His research interests lie at the intersection of the fields of sociology,
geography, and queer studies: sexual nationalisms and the built envi-
ronment, reproduction of sexual regimes in the educational system, and
(neo)colonial practices in city making are among the topics currently
xvi NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
holding his attention. He currently works for the Town and Country
Planning Association in planning policy advocacy.
Dana Theewis is a researcher with an interest in the fields of gender
studies, nationalism(s), educational philosophy, and sociology. She holds
a research M.A. in gender studies from Utrecht University and currently
works for the municipality of Rotterdam in societal development policy.
Previously, she has been a teacher in French and English. She seeks to
combine her practical knowledge of classroom teaching with her academic
passion for educational philosophy.
Mariecke van den Berg is professor by special appointment of feminism
and Christianity at Radboud University Nijmegen and assistant professor
of interreligious studies at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Nether-
lands. She studied theology (B.A.) and gender studies (research M.A.) at
Utrecht University, and obtained a Ph.D. in public administration at the
University of Twente in 2014. Mariecke is assistant managing editor of
the international journal Religion & Gender and a board member of the
Dutch Society of Queer Theologians.
Adriaan van Klinken is professor of religion and African studies at the
University of Leeds, United Kingdom. He has published widely on the
role of religion in the politics of homosexuality in African societies and
is coeditor—with Ezra Chitando—of Public Religion and the Politics
of Homosexuality in Africa and of Christianity and Controversies about
Homosexuality in Contemporary Africa (Routledge, 2016). His recent
monograph is Kenyan, Christian, Queer: Religion, LGBT Activism and
Arts of Resistance in Africa (Penn State University Press, 2019).
Pieter Vullers is a transdisciplinary M.Sc. candidate at Stockholm
Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, studying social-ecological
resilience for sustainable development. He is currently working in collabo-
ration with the Dutch Research Institute for Transitions on transforming
biodiversity governance. He has worked as a research assistant at Åbo
Akademi University, where he among other duties planned, adminis-
tered, and conducted research interviews with NGOs and individual actors
working with issues related to gender and sexual minorities in Finland.
Hendri Yulius Wijaya graduated with a master’s degree in public policy
from Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singa-
pore. He also completed a research master’s degree in gender and cultural
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xvii
studies at the University of Sydney. He has published numerous articles on

gender and sexuality politics in The Jakarta Post, Indonesia at Melbourne,
New Mandala, and Asian Correspondent, among others. He has recently
published his first monograph, Intimate Assemblages: The Politics of Queer
Identities and Sexualities in Indonesia (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020).
List of Figures
Fig. 2.1 Number of texts mentioning sodom* or zodom* in a

sample of Dutch newspapers (Delpher, October 13, 2019),
1620–1869, per year 24
Fig. 2.2 Number of articles mentioning homofi* or homose* per
100 articles mentioning a particle (de, het or een) in a
sample of Dutch newspapers (Delpher, July 14, 2019) c.q.
in a Calvinist newspaper (RD; Digibron, July 14, 2019),
1950/1971–1994 39
Fig. 2.3 Number of articles mentioning religi*, godsdienst* or
kerk* c.q. sex*, seks*, homose* or homofi* per 100 articles
mentioning geaard* (excl. articles mentioning both) in
a sample of Dutch newspapers (Delpher, November 2,
2019), 1900–1994 46
Fig. 2.4 Number of articles mentioning jood*, joden* or antisem*
per 100 mentioning homofi* or homose* and vice versa (%,
left) and the discursive association between these terms
(χ 2 /n, right) in a sample of Dutch newspapers (Delpher,
December 21, 2019) 47
Fig. 2.5 Number of articles mentioning islam*, moham* or
moslim* per 100 mentioning homofi* or homose* and vice
versa (%, left) and the discursive association between these
terms (χ 2 /n, right) in a sample of Dutch newspapers
(Delpher, December 21, 2019) 49
xix
CHAPTER 1
Public Discourses About Homosexuality

and Religion in Europe and Beyond:
An Introduction
Marco Derks and Mariecke van den Berg
There are three things many people do not discuss candidly with strangers
or mere acquaintances: God, sex, and politics. Such things they prefer to
keep private. But these can easily become topics of fierce debate, particu-
larly when taken together (cf. Bos and Derks 2016). In public discourses
in varying national contexts, for example, religion and homosexuality are
increasingly seen as each other’s antitheses. One can observe this in public
debates about same-sex marriage legislation, the 2017 Nashville State-
ment by the evangelical Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood,
the Vatican’s criticism of “gender ideology,” or Vladimir Putin’s ban on
“gay propaganda,” as well as in the repeatedly asserted claim that the
respective views of Western (white) citizens and (Muslim) immigrants
on (homo)sexuality and gender equality are essentially incompatible. In
M. Derks (B)
The Hague, The Netherlands
M. van den Berg
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
© The Author(s) 2020 1

M. Derks and M. van den Berg (eds.), Public Discourses About
Homosexuality and Religion in Europe and Beyond,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56326-4_1
2 M. DERKS AND M. VAN DEN BERG
this volume we suggest that constructions of religion and homosexuality

are strongly interrelated in polarized debates, which are driven by polit-
ical questions about national, cultural, religious, and sexual identities and
differences—and the recognition thereof. This volume investigates what
is at stake in these constructions of religion and homosexuality in public
discourses.
One of this volume’s hypotheses is that the “discursive struggle” over
religion and homosexuality is connected to shifting lines and practices
dividing what is understood as public and private in modern societies
(e.g., Bracke 2008; Woodhead 2008). While in the West religion was once
self-evidently present in the public domain, it is now often relegated to
the private sphere; homosexuality, on the other hand, once a “matter of
the bedroom,” has become more visible (Seidman et al. 1999). The social
and individual acceptance of homosexuality in Western countries has even
become a prerequisite for claims to citizenship and belonging (Puar 2007;
Dudink 2011; El-Tayeb 2012; Uitermark et al. 2014). This shift has
occurred over a relatively brief period of time, and as of yet little is known
about the role of specific national contexts and relevant institutions and
movements in how religion and homosexuality are being constructed.
A second hypothesis is that the “discursive struggle” is connected to
changing conceptualizations of “religion,” “non-religion,” and “secu-
larism.” Modern or secular notions of sexuality—emphasizing individual
choice, mutual consent, and the fulfillment of everyone’s needs—are
based on liberal imperatives such as freedom, equality, and autonomy. It
is often assumed that these differ fundamentally from traditional or reli-
gious notions of sexuality, which are believed to be based on conflicting
values (e.g., Scott 2013; Korte 2014). This volume seeks to question the
assumptions on which this representation of the current state of affairs
is based, the conventions of religion, secularism, (homo)sexuality, and
gender differences that are brought into play, and the social, cultural,
and ethnic differences between (groups of) people that this oppositional
pairing creates or affirms.
The examples of public debate mentioned above indicate that, particu-
larly in Europe, important shifts have taken place regarding the regulation
and representation of religion and homosexuality: over the last two
decades, same-sex marriage legislation has been introduced in many
European countries; more recently, the (originally American) Nashville
Statement has been mobilized across Europe; the Vatican believes that
1 PUBLIC DISCOURSES ABOUT HOMOSEXUALITY … 3
“gender ideology” has been developed in a Europe that denies its Chris-
tian identity; Putin considers “gay propaganda” a European threat to
Russian values; and debates about Islam and (homo)sexuality have been
transformed and intensified with the recent problematization of migrants
in Europe originally from Muslim-majority countries in North Africa and
the Middle East. These shifts indicate that the ways in which religion and
homosexuality are related in different contexts are strongly connected to
a struggle over the definition of a “proper” European identity. According
to the Pew Research Center (2018), “for most people living in the
former Eastern bloc, being Christian (whether Catholic or Orthodox) is
an important component of their national identity. In Western Europe,
by contrast, most people don’t feel that religion is a major part of their
national identity.” Moreover,
majorities favor same-sex marriage in every Western European country

surveyed, and nearly all of these countries have legalized the practice.
Public sentiment is very different in Central and Eastern Europe, where
majorities in nearly all countries surveyed oppose allowing gays and lesbians
to marry legally. None of the Central and Eastern European countries
surveyed allow same-sex marriages.
The many European states that have introduced same-sex marriage legis-
lation believe that they are setting an example for other nations or
continents, not only when it comes to secularization, as Grace Davie
has argued in Europe: The Exceptional Case (Davie 2002), but also
when it comes to homosexuality or sexual diversity (e.g., Ayoub 2016;
Slootmaeckers et al. 2016). This discourse of a “homoinclusive Europe”
(Kulpa 2014) can also be found in the dynamics of the European Union:
taking a “progressive” stance on homosexuality or sexual diversity and
having solidified this juridically has become an important criterion for the
possible admission of new member states, while it also has a critical func-
tion toward existing central and eastern European member states. This
volume, therefore, focuses on Europe, yet this focus is not only geograph-
ical but also conceptual. What interests us is how constructions of a
European identity function as objects of positive or negative identifica-
tion in public discourses about homosexuality and religion in a particular
context. For example, how do anti-Europeanist right-wing nationalists or
Euro-skeptic left-wing globalists relate to LGBTI emancipation agendas?
What is the discursive role of religion, particular religions, or secularism
in these debates? Such questions are more central to some chapters than
others.
The specific focus of this volume is on the discursive construction of
religion, homosexuality, and national identity in public debates. This
means that these chapters will not present the findings of sociological
surveys about attitudes toward sexual diversity or qualitative research
among (religious) LGBTI persons. At the same time, the debates that
feature in these chapters do affect the lives of LGBTI and/or religious
persons in important ways (cf. Derks 2019, 1), as some contributors
to this volume also explicitly point out. We hope to come to a more
comprehensive—including a more intersectional—understanding of the
mechanisms underlying debates about religion and homosexuality. How
are religious, sexual, and national or European “identities” constructed,
and how do these constructions interrelate? How does “Europe”—or
“the West”—figure in these debates as a means of (dis)identification?
How do issues of race/ethnicity play out in debates in various contexts?
In considering these questions, this volume shares some of the concerns
and approaches that have engendered these studies but also offers, as we
will argue, a distinct contribution of its own.
The volume is situated in a growing body of literature on public
discourses about religion and (homo)sexuality in Europe, a selection of
which we will briefly discuss here. As will become clear from this discus-
sion, much of the important work to which we relate explores some
combination of religion, homosexuality, and national identity, but seldom
comprehensively and critically discusses religion, homosexuality, and
national identity in a European context. For example, while the volume
Christianity and National Identity in Twentieth-Century Europe (Carter
Wood 2011) offers valuable insight into the role of religion—primarily
Christianity—in the construction of European national identities, it pays
little attention to the role of debates about (homo)sexuality and gender
in how Christian—or secular—national European identities are being
constructed. The volume Religious Freedom and Gay Rights (Shah et al.
2016) does address questions of religion, nationality, and homosexuality,
but focuses primarily on the Anglo-Saxon world—that is, the United
Kingdom and the United States, with only three chapters on Conti-
nental Europe. Moreover, its concern is not necessarily an enhanced
understanding of the ways in which religion, homosexuality, and national
identity are co-constitutive, but rather “the potential impediments to reli-
gious freedom that arise when society conceives and enacts equal rights,
especially regarding marriage, for gay men and lesbian women” (Frank
2016, 3). Other volumes in this field, such as De-Centring Western Sexu-
alities: Central and Eastern European Perspectives (Kulpa and Mizielińska
2011), Queer in Europe (Downing and Gillett 2011), and What’s Queer
About Europe? (Rosello and Dasgupta 2014), are primarily concerned
with the role of queer sexualities in constructions of national or European
identity. However, these volumes have relatively little to say about the
role of religious actors or constructions of religion and secularism in such
discursive practices—if they do pay attention to religion, they often repeat
or effectively reinforce the idea that religion is synonymous with the
oppression of queer expressions (cf. Schrijvers 2014, 190). Most of these
scholars have a background in literary or cultural studies, with limited
expertise in the area of religious studies. In a way, Fatima El-Tayeb’s
European Others: Queering Ethnicity in Postnational Europe (El-Tayeb
2015) can be situated among these volumes, although religion plays a
more prominent role in her book. She analyzes the framing and gentrifi-
cation of Muslims in European urban spaces; however, she devotes little
space to discussing Christianity and (Christian) secularism.
The volume National Politics and Sexuality in Transregional Perspec-
tive (Rohde et al. 2017) analyzes national politics in several European
countries as well as in countries in the Middle East and North Africa,
from which many migrants have fled to Europe.1 As a significant number
of these migrants are Muslims—most of them, according to public
perception in Europe—Islam plays a much more prominent role in the
contributions than Christianity. Not only immigration but also “internal”
dynamics on the Continent give rise to debates about sexuality and reli-
gion. In Palgrave Macmillan’s Gender and Politics Series, a number of
volumes and monographs have appeared on gender politics in Europe—
or, more specifically, in the European Union—such as Gender and Far
Right Politics in Europe (Köttig et al. 2017) and Gender Equality Policy in
the European Union (Bego 2015), but also a volume on The EU Enlarge-
ment and Gay Politics (Slootmaeckers et al. 2016). The latter focuses
mainly on central and eastern Europe, because that has been the stage of
more recent EU enlargement processes. It is no surprise, then, that several
chapters analyze the role of Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and
Islam; yet the absence of a critical discussion of secularism is striking.
1 A revised version of Paul Mepschen’s contribution has been reissued in the current
volume.
The specificity of our volume lies in its consistent focus on public

discourse, treatment of religion and homosexuality as co-constructive,
attention to national particularities, and reflection on the (symbolic) role
of “Europe.” The interests of the current volume are, therefore, similar
to those of the volumes Anti-Gender Campaigns in Europe: Mobilizing
Against Equality (Kuhar and Paternotte 2017) and Religious and Sexual
Nationalisms in Central and Eastern Europe (Sremac and Ganzevoort
2015b). The editors of the first volume explain that, “while there is a
growing literature on religion, gender and sexuality in Europe, it tends
to focus on Islam, asking whether it can be combined with an embrace
of gender and sexual equality” (Paternotte and Kuhar 2017, 4). With
a focus on the Vatican-inspired anti-gender campaigns that have devel-
oped across Europe over the last two decades, they want to add new
perspectives to these debates. For similar reasons, the current volume
not only includes several chapters that pay attention to this Vatican anti-
gender discourse (esp. Chapters 9–11), but more generally it also aims to
offer a more comprehensive discussion of the discursive role of different
“religions.”2 The conceptual focus of the second volume is on “reli-
gion, nationhood and sexual diversity—more specifically homosexuality”
(Sremac and Ganzevoort 2015a, 1), while it “explores whether and how
the oppositional pairing of religion and homosexuality is related to the
specific religio-political configurations in different multi-layered cultural
and national contexts” (2015a, 1–2). Our volume builds on this work,
expanding the focus to include “Europe” in the broad sense defined
above and discussing, in addition to the formation of national identity,
the way in which boundaries between various groups are being drawn in
public debates about religion and homosexuality.
All contributors to this volume focus on different types of public
discourse—even those that also include interview material (e.g.,
Mepschen; Nynäs, Kejonen and Vullers; Béraud) relate their analyses
to broader public discourses and societal developments. Some focus on
certain debates (e.g., same-sex marriage debates in Béraud), certain types
of source material (e.g., sex ed modules in Rutten and Theewis), a partic-
ular discursive strategy (e.g., comparing homophobia with antisemitism
2 However, we would say that there is not only, as Paternotte and Kuhar write, “a
growing literature” that asks “whether it can be combined with an embrace of gender and
sexual equality,” but also “a growing literature” that critically analyzes public discourses that
claim that Islam cannot “be combined with an embrace of gender and sexual equality.”
in Kulpa), or a particular concept or phenomenon (e.g., specific types of

sexual nationalism in Mepschen; Rutten and Theewis; Brunotte), while
others discuss broader tendencies (e.g., Bos; De Bruijne; Cornejo-Valle
and Pichardo). They all undertake some order of textual analysis—specif-
ically Critical Discourse Analysis in the contributions by Rutten and
Theewis, and Dolinska Rydzek and Van den Berg—but the type of
questions they ask differs, depending on their own disciplinary perspec-
tives and methodological approaches. For example, Igrutinovic and Van
den Berg take a cultural studies approach, situating their analysis in
scholarly debates on blasphemy, while De Bruijne offers “a narrative
theological analysis of late-modern sexualities,” building on several philo-
sophical and theological genealogies of modernity. All contributions are
explicitly concerned with relations and operations of power, for example
in the effective exclusion of certain minority perspectives (Rutten and
Theewis), but also in the effective deconstruction of heteronormativity
(Dolińska-Rydzek and Van den Berg) and in changes in certain postcolo-
nial relations (Van Klinken and Phiri). While several contributions pay
attention to alliances between religious institutions and right-wing groups
(e.g., Giorgi; Cornejo-Valle and Pichardo; Béraud; Igrutinovic and Van
den Berg), others also critically analyze certain discursive strategies among
the progressive left (e.g., Bos; Mepschen; Kulpa). The contributors aim
to explore the heuristic value of the concept of postsecularity (e.g.,
Nynäs, Kejonen and Vullers; Cornejo-Valle and Pichardo), to illuminate
the construction of religion and homosexuality in relation to national
belonging (e.g., Igrutinovic and Van den Berg), to nuance the popular
idea that religion is the main or even only obstacle on the road to sexual
freedom and diversity (e.g., Bos) or to foster a more fruitful dialogue
between apparently oppositional groups (e.g., De Bruijne). The thread
that links all these diverse contributions is a commitment to complicate
simplistic or shallow oppositions of religion and homosexuality in public
discourse. The authors show the stakes involved for different groups and
individuals that participate in the formation of public discourse, and how
they may benefit from positing religion and homosexuality as a neces-
sary opposition. So, rather than making the argument that they do not
create such an opposition, the authors in this volume ask questions about
what religion and homosexuality have come to represent for different
actors. We regard the diversity of themes and approaches represented in
this volume as offering a kaleidoscopic perspective on what are, in fact,
complex and quickly changing dynamics.
Having explained this volume’s focus on public discourses, we now

turn to discuss the remaining terms that feature in its title: “homosex-
uality,” “religion,” and “Europe and beyond.” But first a general note
about language: for most citizens of the countries that figure in the chap-
ters in this volume, English is not their primary language, which means
that, strictly speaking, they do not use these terms. Yet even if they use
words in their national language that are etymologically related to “homo-
sexuality” or “religion,” these words might still have slightly different
connotations. At the same time, they might be, to greater or lesser
extent, familiar with Anglo-Saxon (American and/or British) discourses
about and conceptualizations of “homosexuality” and “religion”—and
they might even occasionally use certain English terms rather than terms
from their native languages.
In the title of this volume, we deliberately speak of “homosexu-
ality” instead of “sexual and gender diversity,” “queer sexuality,” “LGBTI
rights,” or any other term. As many of the chapters illustrate, discourses
on sexual rights, sexual diversity, same-sex marriage, and so on are
often particularly concerned with homosexuality—in whatever way it is
articulated and conceptualized. Sometimes, this focus on homosexuality
remains rather implicit in public discourse. For example, Céline Béraud
shows how the French act that allowed same-sex couples to marry was
presented in universalizing terms—“mariage pour tous ”—making few
mentions of homosexuality, while the opposition responded by criticizing
pleas for gender and sexual equality more broadly. Another such example
can be found in Koen Rutten and Dana Theewis’s analysis of Dutch
sexual diversity education material: they note that such material often
isolates sexuality, “which enables the experiences of white, male, middle-
class, secular, and out homosexuals to dominate method and practice in
sexual diversity education.” In each chapter of this volume—be it in the
sources the authors are citing or in the articulations of their own analytical
perspectives—different terms and acronyms are being used. This depends
mainly on the genre, the language, and the historical and national context
of the source material, while in some cases the theoretical perspective
or more pragmatic considerations of the authors also play a role. In a
historical contribution, David Bos uses the expression “same-sex sexu-
ality,” which, as he poignantly puts it, “merely serves as a reminder that
‘homosexuality,’ ‘gay,’ ‘lesbian,’ ‘LGBTIQ,’ etc. are historical, culturally
contingent constructions that tend to be anachronistic when referring to
practices, desires, or identities in the even not so distant past.”
The chapters offer analyses of public discourses about homosexu-

ality and religion. These can be particular “religious” discourses about
homosexuality, but also (secular) discourses about religion and homosex-
uality—that is, about “religion” in general (whether or not it is presented
as a monolithic phenomenon) or about a specific religion. Different types
of religion play a role in this volume: Catholicism (central to Béraud;
Cornejo-Valle; Giorgi; less prominent in Bos; Kulpa), different strands
of Protestantism (central to De Bruijne; Nynäs, Kejonen, and Vullers;
Van Klinken and Phiri; less prominent in Bos), Eastern Orthodoxy
(Igrutinović and Van den Berg; Dolińska-Rydzek and Van den Berg),
Judaism (central to Brunotte; Kulpa; less prominent in Bos) and Islam
(central to Mepschen; Rutten and Theewis; Wijaya; less prominent in
Bos; Igrutinović and Van den Berg). The reader will notice the promi-
nence of different types of Christianity. In most chapters, the main focus
is on the religious community or institution that is the majority in the
country in question, which in the case of European countries is often
some type of Christianity. As we have explained above, this volume
should be understood as a contribution to a broader field of research in
which we notice a strong focus on Islam and a gap when it comes to the
discursive role of, in particular, different types of Christianity. Although
we believe such research is valid and necessary, a focus on Islam also
has its limitations: it may reproduce the problematization of Islam while
ignoring the role of Christian and secularist argumentation—in some
cases it can even be a kind of orientalism.
One of the central themes in our volume is Europe: specifically, the
way in which it functions in public debates about religion and homo-
sexuality. We have already mentioned that our concern is not only with
Europe as a geographical location, but also with the discursive use of
the term. Over the last decades, “Europe” has become a layered concept
that can no longer be used in a neutral way. In debates about the Euro-
pean Union it has been a symbolic idea, an imaginary community, an
imaginary friend, or even an idée fixe, both cheered as the solution to
a multitude of problems as well as (increasingly) met with skepticism
regarding its interference with national or local politics. Europe has come
to figure prominently in discourses of nationalisms that are not necessarily
restricted to singular nations: that of the United Kingdom versus conti-
nental Europe, or northwestern Europe against eastern Europe and/or
southern Europe. In the imaginings of these regions, religion and homo-
sexuality figure prominently, as will become clear in this volume. We are
also interested in Europe and its “beyond”, asking three broad ques-
tions. First, how are European borders imagined, which regions, ideas,
expressions are considered to be “out of bounds” and which are seen
as inherently European? This question is discussed, for instance, in the
contribution by Mepschen, who reflects on the culturalist position that
holds that European “Judeo-Christian values” are incompatible with
values presumably held by Muslim immigrants. Also, the chapters by
Kulpa, Igrutinović and Van den Berg, and Dolińska-Rydzek and Van den
Berg show how national identity in Poland, Serbia and Russia, respec-
tively, are constructed over identifications and disidentifications with
Europe. Giorgi’s chapter explicates how debates over religion and homo-
sexuality in Italy have been influenced by the Europeanization of LGBT+
rights. Second, we ask: how do colonial Others function in European
notions of identity? This question is briefly touched upon by Bos, who
discovered that the term homoseksualiteit was first used in a newspaper
in the “Dutch Indies” and related to sexual practices encountered in this
former Dutch colony. Additionally, Brunotte argues for the analysis of the
function of Europe’s “inner Orient” (Rohde 2005, 1), that is, its Jewish
population, in the rise of European homonationalism. Finally, our third
question is: how does Europe, in turn, function as an Other in its former
colonies? This question is addressed by Van Klinken and Phiri, who focus
on Zambian religious responses to European LGBTI rights diplomacy,
and by Wijaya, who analyzes conservative religious groups’ hyperbolic
interpretation of European policies and discourses on LGBT rights in
order to establish a distinct Indonesian identity. The contributions in
this volume clarify how religion and homosexuality figure prominently
in public debates where Europe’s internal and external symbolic borders
are being drawn. Discussions that are “about” religion and homosexuality
are therefore also about other types of identity and in particular national
identity.
This volume starts with four chapters on the historical and current
political and religious configurations of debates about (homo)sexuality
in one particular European country: the Netherlands. We pay signif-
icantly more attention to the Dutch case for a number of reasons.
Both geographically and culturally, the Netherlands is located in the
middle of (western) Europe, surrounded—and, to greater or lesser extent,
affected—by German Vernunft, French révolutionnisme, Anglo-Saxon
utilitarianism, and Nordic social progressivism. This makes a discussion
of the Dutch case a suitable starting point for international comparisons.
The country also played an active role in the foundation of the European
Union. More importantly, the Netherlands has followed a remarkable
trajectory when it comes to public debates about religion and homosex-
uality. As David Bos demonstrates in the first chapter, public pleas for
social inclusion of gays and lesbians were articulated remarkably early in
the Netherlands. Moreover—and strikingly—Christian pastors and priests
were among the first to address the social needs of “homophiles,” which
indicates that at the very early stages of public debates, religion and
homosexuality were not as “oppositional” as they would often be framed
in later decades. In 2001, the Netherlands was the first country in the
world to open marriage for same-sex couples. In that same year, however,
the country also witnessed the rise of the flamboyant, gay politician Pim
Fortuyn, one of the earliest examples of the merging of homonorma-
tivity, populism, and anti-Islam sentiments. These sentiments, which we
are nowadays witnessing in many European countries and beyond, are
particularly prevalent in the Netherlands (Uitermark et al. 2014, 236;
Bracke 2012, 240; cf. Derks 2019, 3).
We start with a lengthy yet lively contribution by church historian and
sociologist David Bos (Chapter 2) on the history of same-sex sexuality
and religion in the Netherlands. More precisely, he highlights the role
of religious institutions, figures, concepts, or idioms in changing percep-
tions of and attitudes toward same-sex sexuality. Among the central events
he elaborates on are the persecution of “sodomites” in the eighteenth
century, the decriminalization of same-sex sexuality under the Napoleonic
Code pénal (1811), and the introduction of a discriminatory legisla-
tive provision under a government led by the neo-Calvinist theologian
Abraham Kuyper (1911). Having an eye for detail, Bos also discusses a
very early (1886) reference to “homosexuality” that he discovered in an
essay in a leading newspaper in the Netherlands East Indies: in this essay
the (Dutch) author claims that “homosexuality” is widespread among the
Chinese people on Sumatra but “incidental” in Western societies. More-
over, Bos shows how, in the 1960s and 1970s, Protestant and Catholic
pastors led the country toward affirmation of homosexuality, taking a
more progressive stance than those in the government. Since the late
1970s, however, the country has witnessed an increasing polarization
with the simultaneous rise of the gay and lesbian movement and religious
fundamentalism. One of the major lessons from this history of same-sex
sexuality and religion in the Netherlands is that, while same-sex sexuality
was long attributed to ethnic and religious outsiders, accepting it is nowa-

days considered a core value of Dutch or Western culture—and allegedly
a bridge too far for ethnic and religious newcomers.
This characteristic of Dutch culture also features in contemporary
Dutch sex-ed material. Koen Rutten and Dana Theewis (Chapter 3)
discuss how the opposition between religion and homosexuality is rein-
forced in educational materials produced by both governmental and
nongovernmental organizations for the purpose of sexual diversity educa-
tion. They demonstrate how in these materials the normalization of
(homo)sexuality and the emphasis on safety and visibility foreground
a Dutch or Western understanding of sexuality, including the impera-
tive to “come out.” Moreover, they show that sexual diversity education
perpetuates—often in quite subtle ways—racialized perspectives about the
“correct” way of dealing with issues of sexuality. In these perspectives,
white students are expected to be accepting and tolerant, while students
of color are problematized: it is assumed they will reject homosexuality
because of their (presumed) Muslim identity.
While several scholars—including Paul Mepschen himself—have
already analyzed “homonationalism” as an operative component of right-
wing populist rhetoric, Mepschen (Chapter 4) shows that similar sexual
nationalist rhetorics can be found on the left or progressive side of the
political spectrum. He offers critical reflections on interviews he has had
with Ahmed Marcouch, a social-democratic politician and liberal Muslim
who, in his capacity as district chairman, has frequently addressed the
problem of homophobia among his fellow Dutch-Moroccan citizens in
the district of Amsterdam New West. Mepschen shows how Marcouch’s
views and strategy exemplify a broader postprogressive discourse among
the Dutch Left, while they are also an example of “civil Islam.”
Another type of religious Others are conservative Christians, who
feature in the fourth and final chapter on the Netherlands. Ad de Bruijne
(Chapter 5) offers a theological analysis of Dutch debates about sexuality
more generally. Making an ideal-typical distinction between “orthodox
Christians” and “emancipatory liberals,” he claims that these groups,
with seemingly oppositional views on the issues at stake, actually have
more in common than they acknowledge or are even aware of. For
example, if “orthodox Christians” would take certain liberal views of
sexuality seriously, this would help them retrieve the original Christian
vision of sexuality and relationality as future-oriented; on the other hand,
De Bruijne argues, “emancipatory liberals” could learn from the Chris-

tian tradition that sexual freedom is only possible when acknowledging
“that sexuality as a deliberately created phenomenon bears an inherent
meaning.”
The volume proceeds with two chapters on central European countries:
Germany and Poland. Historian Ulrike Brunotte (Chapter 6) analyzes
the discursive intersection of Jewishness and homosexuality around 1900
in Germany, where she locates the roots of current (homo)nationalism.
Building on the work of Daniel and Jonathan Boyarin, she argues that
present-day homonationalism is neither new nor particular to our present
time, but rather has a complex historical genealogy that needs to be disen-
tangled. She shows how in “the male gender crisis” of the German Second
Empire a binary opposition was created between German, muscular
masculinity, and effeminate, homosexual Jewishness. Adding a colonial
perspective, Brunotte moreover analyzes how these different perspectives
on masculinity are situated in Christian constructions of Judaism that
predate “the male gender crisis,” and she demonstrates how the hege-
monic Männerbund (male band) of German men that was constructed
vis-à-vis a Jewish Other is rooted in colonial imaginations. In its careful
parsing of religious, colonial, and national constructions of homosexu-
ality and German identity, Brunotte’s chapter exemplifies the importance
of historical research for the understanding of present-day phenomena.
Roberto Kulpa (Chapter 7) also investigates connections between
homosexuality and Judaism, but his focus is on homophobia and anti-
semitism. At several points in recent Polish history, homophobic and
antisemitic speech figured prominently in right-wing discourses. Kulpa
critically examines the discursive mechanisms that are at play in liberal
comparisons between (contemporary) homophobia and (early/mid-
twentieth-century) antisemitism. This analogy was made particularly
among left-progressive Polish opinion makers in the mid/late 2000s in
order to counter right-wing discourses, but may have had negative effects
of its own. Based on a critique of the analogy between racism and sexism
in the work of Trina Grillo and Stephanie Wildman, Kulpa analyzes the
effects of discursive constructions of homophobia and antisemitism as
potentially downplaying antisemitism, overestimating the power of (early
twentieth-century) antisemitism to explain present-day homophobia and
fix both antisemitism and homophobia as unchanging categories. The
latter, Kulpa explains, is strongly related to the construction of Polish
national identity and its relation to its Catholic roots. Kulpa suggest that
intersectionality, rather than analogy, is a fruitful analytical approach to

uncover the complicated ways in which sexuality, religion, and national
identity are related in Polish public debate.
Peter Nynäs, Eetu Kejonen, and Pieter Vullers (Chapter 8) discuss yet
another form of public homophobic speech, namely that of conserva-
tive clergy in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, who, despite
ongoing processes of secularization in Finland, continue to speak out
publicly against LGBT rights, leading to considerable controversy. The
authors discuss how such public utterances characterize the postsecular
condition of Finnish society today, adding an important perspective (that
of postsecularism) to the analysis. Based on qualitative research among
professionals from organizations working with issues relevant to sexual
and gender minorities, they discuss the potential impact of these religious
public statements on LGBT people. Their chapter shows that even in a
secularized country where Christianity is no longer the default majority
position, religiously motivated rejection of homosexuality co-constructs a
hostile environment that may have real effects on the people it addresses,
whether they are themselves believers or not. The authors point to the
importance of taking into account developments in (new) media use in
the presence of religion in contemporary society, which considerably alters
the postsecular landscape of countries such as Finland.
The next three chapters discuss contemporary public debates in three
southern (and southwestern) European countries with a predominantly
Catholic tradition: Italy, Spain, and France. Unsurprisingly, each chapter
pays at least some attention to the Vatican’s teaching on homosexuality
and its aforementioned rhetoric against “gender ideology.” With Rome
being the capital of Italy as well as the center of Latin Christianity, the
influence of the Vatican on Italian politics and public life cannot be
overstated. However, in her chapter on religious voices in debates over
LGBT+ rights in Italy, Alberta Giorgi (Chapter 9) shows that there is not
one single Catholic discourse, but a plurality of Catholic voices. While
official church discourse condemns homosexuality, it is also subject to
changes in tone, style, and focus. Catholic civil society, moreover, consists
of a plethora of organizations, both conservative and progressive. Inter-
estingly, Giorgi considers the consequences of the demise of the Roman
Catholic Christian democratic party in her analysis of the diversification
of Catholic participants in ethical debates, such as those on homosexu-
ality, emphasizing the importance of the party-political dimension. Giorgi
offers a layered analysis in which official Church doctrine, international
actors and networks, and the plurality of religious voices in the public
debate are explored in relation to one another.
After the Spanish Catholic Church’s dubious role during the Francoist
dictatorship, Spain witnessed a rapid secularization and an interrelated
sexual liberation in the 1980s. More recently, it has found a new way
to position itself politically in the public arena. Monica Cornejo-Valle
and Ignacio Pichardo (Chapter 10) show how this “Catholic postsec-
ularism” is aligned with the New Evangelization strategy initiated by
Pope John Paul II and further propagated by his successors, which
considers Europe Christian territory. Highlighting the alliances between
the Roman Catholic Church and “secular” right-wing groups against
same-sex marriage laws and antidiscrimination policies in Spain, the
chapter explores the actors, strategies, and discourses of Catholic activists,
including the international platform CitizenGo, which also took its
anti-transgender campaign to France, Germany, Italy, and the United
States.
While France is known for its laïcité—probably one of the most
rigorous separations of church and state in Europe—religious protests
against the Mariage pour tous Act in 2012–2013 were remarkably fierce.
Céline Béraud (Chapter 11) shows that, although Roman Catholic clergy
and lay people played a pivotal role in these protests, they used the secular
rhetoric of rights. Moreover, the bill was presented in universal rather
than particular terms—“marriage for all,” not “gay marriage”—and its
critics responded with a “demonstration for all.” Béraud argues that the
family model promoted by the critics is not universal (as they implied) but
rather a particular Roman Catholic understanding of the “natural” family.
At the same time, however, the French church hierarchy has corrected
or nuanced its views on same-sex relationships, partly because they have
become aware of the traumatizing effects of their protests on Catholic
LGBT people.
The final four chapters discuss contexts that are “beyond Europe” in
several ways. Two chapters discuss (postcommunist) countries that are
situated—both geographically and culturally—on the (eastern) border of
what is generally considered Europe: the “Eurasian” country of Russia as
well as a country that struggles with whether it wants to identify primarily
with Europe/the European Union or with Russia: Serbia. Two final chap-
ters discuss debates in former European colonies—British and Dutch
respectively—in which colonial legacies and current geopolitical devel-
opments play out in different ways: Zambia and Indonesia. These four
chapters on postcommunist and postcolonial countries make comparisons

with public discourses in predominantly postsecular European countries
or, more specifically, they show how “Europe” plays a discursive role—as
an object of either positive or negative identification—in constructions of
religion, sexuality, and national identity.
Danica Igrutinović and Mariecke van den Berg (Chapter 12) take the
concept of blasphemy as their point of departure in analyzing the produc-
tion of religion and homosexuality in public discourses in Sweden and
Serbia. They compare responses to the controversial art exhibition Ecce
Homo by Swedish artist Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin in Sweden (1998–1999)
and Serbia (2012), with a focus on the latter. While in Sweden, Evangel-
ical Lutheranism and LGBT affirmative discourse coalesced around the
exhibit, in Serbia, Ohlson’s “homo-Jesus” was discussed exclusively in
terms of blasphemy and freedom of speech and did not engender any
serious theological reflection on Serbian Orthodox discourse on homo-
sexuality. The rejection can partly be understood as a case of Orthodox
unease with representations of Jesus Christ and the apostles outside of the
iconic tradition. However, Ecce Homo was also an occasion for nationalist
groups such as Dveri to enforce a binary opposition between a Russia-
oriented, Orthodox, and traditional Serbia and a secular, decadent, and
pro-LGBT Europe.
Magda Dolińska-Rydzek and Mariecke van den Berg (Chapter 13)
choose a quite distinctive approach to study public discourses on religion
and homosexuality. They focus on just one term that is frequently used
in online statements by religious nationalists in Russia: “the Antichrist.”
They argue that, while in Russia the Antichrist is a figure who has been
imbued with different meanings throughout the centuries, the under-
lying rhetorical purpose of invoking this figure has been consistent. The
Antichrist denotes the Other, the un-Russian outsider. Presently, LGBT
people and their advocates have been deemed (servants of) the Antichrist
on RuNet, the Russian segment of the Internet. Dolińska-Rydzek and
Van den Berg explore the effects of, as well as the cracks in, this particular
discourse.
When, in 2013, the EU Delegation to Zambia offered funding for civil
society projects improving the position of LGBTI persons, the minister
of internal affairs and an influential evangelical leader, among others,
responded very critically, calling homosexuality “un-Zambian” and “un-
Christian.” In their discussion, Adriaan van Klinken and Emmanuel
Phiri (Chapter 14) point out that Zambia’s current criminalization of
homosexuality is a vestige of former British colonial rule, which makes

calling homosexuality “un-Zambian” an obvious example of “postcolonial
amnesia.” Moreover, Christianity is also part of this colonial heritage and,
therefore, “originally” not Zambian. The authors highlight the ambigui-
ties in these Zambian responses to EU intervention, while taking political
homophobia in Zambia as “a manifestation of postcolonial modernity
itself.”
Hendri Yulius Wijaya (Chapter 15) argues that the expansion of LGBT
rights in a number of Western countries has resulted in a backlash in
Indonesia. Using the concept of “anticipatory homophobia,” coined by
Meredith Weiss, Wijaya explores the way in which anti-LGBT groups first
construct a Western conception of homosexuality and LGBT emancipa-
tion to then “debunk” this construction as un-Indonesian and un-Islamic.
In his reflection on the legacy of colonial and postcolonial rule in
present-day conceptions of homosexuality, Wijaya makes an important
contribution to the understanding of the complicated interwovenness of
Indonesian and European/Western regulation of religion and homosexu-
ality. However, the main focus of the chapter is on the rise of homophobic
public discourse from increasingly powerful conservative Islamic groups
since the collapse of Suharto’s rule in 1998. Attempts to construct a
hegemonic national identity via the binary of Indonesian, Muslim, and
traditional versus Western, secular, and pro-LGBT, Wijaya demonstrates,
largely depend on the construction of yet another binary: that of “not
yet in crisis” versus “in crisis.” This is an important observation, since it
invites us to explore discourses on religion and homosexuality not only
in terms of content, but also the ways in which attempts are made to
determine how and in what terms the topic is discussed in the first place.
This volume brings together a variety of reflections on public
discourses about homosexuality and religion in the Netherlands,
Germany, Italy, France, Finland, Poland, Sweden, Spain, Serbia, Russia,
Zambia, and Indonesia. The fourteen contributions show a rich variety
of often paradoxical and always shifting relationships between religion,
sexuality, and politics, where different parties have different stakes in how
they envision the preferred relationship between the different “bodies”
involved: human bodies, religious bodies, and the body politic. If one
thing becomes clear from these contributions, it is that we need to look
beyond the apparent opposition between religion and homosexuality and
that we need to do more than merely unmasking by now all-too-familiar
binaries of religious versus secular, private versus public, or the West
versus the rest. It is our hope that this volume contributes to the further
understanding of these complexities.
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CHAPTER 2
Hellish Evil, Heavenly Love: A Long-Term

History of Same-Sex Sexuality and Religion in
the Netherlands
David J. Bos
According to international surveys, attitudes toward homosexuality (and

bisexuality) are more favorable in the Netherlands than they are in all
other (European) countries except Iceland (Kuyper 2018). Differences
between western European countries are slight, however, and steadily
This work was supported by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific

Research (NWO) (grant number 327-25-004). It is part of the research project
“Contested Privates: The Oppositional Pairing of Religion and Homosexuality
in Contemporary Public Discourse in the Netherlands.” One of the papers on
which it is based (“Sodom Across the Atlantic: A Comparison of American and
Dutch Histories”) was presented at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the American
Academy of Religion, in a book panel on Heather R. White’s Reforming Sodom:
Protestants and the Rise of Gay Rights (Chapel Hill: The University of North
Carolina Press, 2015). I thank Heather White as well as Gert Hekma, Theo van
der Meer, Mariecke van den Berg, Marco Derks, Ruard Ganzevoort,
Anne-Marie Korte, and Srdjan Sremac for their valuable comments on this and
related papers.
© The Author(s) 2020 21

M. Derks and M. van den Berg (eds.), Public Discourses About
Homosexuality and Religion in Europe and Beyond,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56326-4_2
22 D. J. BOS
decreasing. What makes the Netherlands a remarkable case is that nega-

tive attitudes diminished so early. In 1981, when 39% of Swedish, 45%
of (West) German, 47% of British, 48% of Icelandic, 52% of French or
Belgian, and even 61% of Irish respondents agreed that homosexuality
was “never justified,” merely 25% of Dutch respondents did so (Kuyper
et al. 2013, 17).
Both in scholarly discussions and in everyday conversations, the relative
absence of (overt, measurable) “homonegativity” in present-day Dutch
society is often attributed either to secularization or to an allegedly
national, time-tested tradition of “tolerance,” for example with respect to
sex work, recreational drugs, and—at the time of the Dutch Republic—
religious dissent. Neither of these two standard explanations is entirely
convincing. In terms of religious affiliation, attendance, or beliefs, the
Netherlands is not the most secularized country in present-day Europe.
And whereas the Republic often tolerated religious minorities, it repressed
“wrong lovers.”
In this chapter, I will show how Dutch perceptions of, policies on,
and attitudes toward same-sex sexuality changed over time and what part
religious institutions, figures, concepts, or idioms have played in this. A
long-term history such as this cannot but be incomplete; I will discuss
a limited number of landmark events, publications, or trends, and only
partly on the basis of my own findings. Bisexuality and pedophilia will not
be discussed separately; the expression “same-sex sexuality” merely serves
as a reminder that “homosexuality,” “gay,” “lesbian,” “LGBTIQ,” etc.
are historical, culturally contingent constructions that tend to be anachro-
nistic when referring to practices, desires, or identities in the even not so
distant past.
The Will to Know

In the country now known as the Netherlands—as in other European
countries—sex between males was commonly referred to as “sodomy”
until the late nineteenth century (Van der Meer 1997, 2007a; cf. De
D. J. Bos (B)
Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences,
University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2 HELLISH EVIL, HEAVENLY LOVE: A LONG-TERM HISTORY … 23
Vrijer 1932). This biblical name implied a warning of the devastating,

collective consequences of committing or permitting certain acts—but
which ones, exactly? (Van der Meer 1997, 30). Conceptual clarity was
hard to find because sodomy was considered the crimen nefandum: an
“unmentionable,” “unspeakable” transgression. Any public discussion of
it might lead the innocent into temptation.
Consequently, despite its seriousness, “sodomy” was but rarely perse-
cuted. The first European executed on these charges was a knife maker in
Ghent who was burned on the pile in 1292 (Goodich 1979, 85). But
the number of trials and executions in the Low Countries was much
smaller than in Southern Europe, and convicts were usually not burned
but strangled or drowned—a form of execution suited for females, but
also for keeping things from the public eye (Van der Meer 1997). In the
Dutch Republic—where Calvinism was the dominant religion—sodomy
was believed to be rare. This vice was deemed typical of “Italians,” “Sara-
cens,” and “Turks,”—that is, of Catholics and Muslims, who indulged
in luxury. The independence war of the Northern Low Countries against
“Spain” and “Rome” in 1568–1648 was even equated to the exodus of
Lot and his kin from the depraved cities of the plain (Van der Meer 1995).
The silence on sodomy was broken in January 1730, when the sexton
of the Utrecht Dom Tower reported having seen two men commit-
ting sodomy in a room below his quarters. One of them was arrested
and produced a whole list of accomplices, some of whom were men of
high social standing. A cascade of arrests, trials, and executions followed,
discovering an urban subculture—with meeting places, signs, and a slang
of its own—that transgressed geographic and class boundaries. In July, the
authorities decided that henceforth sodomites should always be executed
in public, their corpses be exposed, and verdicts be advertised in order to
deter others. Within three years, at least one hundred Dutch sodomites
were executed—more than during the preceding four centuries (Van der
Meer 1995).
These years saw a sudden eruption of writing on sodomy: newspaper
articles (see Fig. 2.1), verdicts, pamphlets, poems, prints, and books,
including treatises by ministers of religion. The most notorious mono-
graph is Helsche boosheyt of grouwelijke zonde van sodomie (Hellish evil
or gruesome sin of sodomy), written by the Rev. Henricus Carolinus
van Byler, Reformed pastor of a village where the local nobleman had
twenty-two male inhabitants—aged fifteen to forty—strangled, hanged,
24 D. J. BOS
35
30
25
20
15
10
0
1620
1626
1632
1638
1644
1650
1656
1662
1668
1674
1680
1686
1692
1698
1704
1710
1716
1722
1728
1734
1740
1746
1752
1758
1764
1770
1776
1782
1788
1794
1800
1806
1812
1818
1824
1830
1836
1842
1848
1854
1860
1866
Fig. 2.1 Number of texts mentioning sodom* or zodom* in a sample of Dutch
newspapers (Delpher, October 13, 2019), 1620–1869, per year
and burned.1 As Dutch historian Theo van der Meer (1997, 100–1,
157) has shown, however, Van Byler’s book was published only after the
trials had started, and besides moral condemnations it offered an impres-
sive amount of information on sodomy—a summary of international
theological, juridical, historical, and ethnographic scholarship.
This publication, as well as some others, testify to “the will to know”
(Foucault 1976) about sodomy and other “dumb vices.” Explaining it
from alien influences such as Catholic or Muslim luxuria had become less
convincing, now that it had also been found among hard-working peas-
ants—and even Reformed pastors. In several pamphlets, the Rev. Emanuel
Valk refuted rumors about having pawed a manservant, but he refused
to “purge” himself of the offense in court, as ordered by the Reformed
Church. In 1732, he was arrested, interrogated, and—after one day in
jail—hanged himself (Van der Meer 1997, 102). This did not save him or
his widow from public humiliation: his dead body was dragged through
the streets of his former parish and thrown into the sea. And yet, he was
not completely silenced. According to a contemporaneous pamphlet Valk
had told his interrogators that sodomy should not be punished because
1 All translations in this chapter are my own.

other laws in Leviticus were not being enforced either. Other stories, too,
suggest that some pastors denied the sinfulness of same-sex love. In 1748,
the Rev. Georgius Minheer was said to have made a pass at a young man
by referring to David and Jonathan. Five years later, the Rev. Andreas
Klink allegedly claimed his liking for men was congenital, resulting from
the “great appetite and desire” his mother had felt for her spouse when
the latter was absent during her pregnancy (Van der Meer 1997, 314–17).
Even if these stories are “unhistorical,” they are historically significant,
indicating the emergence of a new discourse in which same-sex lovers
were no longer entirely “dumb.”
Decriminalization
In 1795, French armies invaded the Dutch Republic and toppled its
ancien régime. This “Batavian Revolution” was applauded by many Jews,
Catholics, and Protestant dissenters—who now gained full citizenship—
as well as by (other) proponents of the Dutch Enlightenment (Schama
1981) such as Elizabeth Wolff-Bekker and Agatha Deken. After the
death of the former’s husband—a well-to-do Reformed pastor—the two
childless women lived together and coauthored several highly acclaimed
epistolary novels, in which they often ridiculed religious orthodoxy while
also criticizing freethinking. Some of their enemies suggested that there
was a “Sapphic” or “romantic” dimension to their friendship, but Betje
and Aagje themselves spoke of one another as “soul mates”—a concept
previously used for describing believers’ intimate relationship with God
(Everard 1994, 75).
In the 1790s, the Amsterdam judiciary brought to light some very
different intimacies between women, most of who belonged to the urban
underclass. In these relations, lust and passion were unmistakable: eyewit-
nesses reported caressing, kissing, groping, pawing, bumping, fingering,
licking, and even usage of an obscure, oblong, strapped-on instrument
(Van der Meer 1984, 137–47). None of these diversions had been
brought to justice before, but women who fancied them had been known
for decades, said their neighbors, and had an informal leader who was
called their “Reverend” (Everard 1994, 169–77).
In 1810, the country was annexed by the French Empire, and one
year later the Napoleonic Code pénal came into force here. It recognized
only two sex offenses: encouraging “lewdness” with minors and offenses
against “decency” (Tielman 1982, 63; Hekma 2004, 40). On the basis of
26 D. J. BOS
the latter rule, many men would be prosecuted—a much higher number
than the sodomites of old—but sex in private between consenting, adult
same-sex partners was no longer a criminal offense. This decriminaliza-
tion occurred a bit later than in France and the Southern Low Countries
(present-day Belgium and Luxembourg; 1791–92), but earlier than in
Spain (1822), and much earlier than in other European countries such as
Denmark and Iceland (1930), Sweden (1944), England (1967), East and
West Germany (1968–1969), Scotland (1980), and Russia (1993)—not
to mention the United States (Waaldijk 2013).
After the Netherlands regained independence in 1813, the Code pénal
remained in place, and the 1886 Dutch Criminal Code that eventually
replaced it did not criminalize same-sex sexuality either—only forced sex,
sex in public, and sex with minors. Such a decriminalization of sex, writes
Gert Hekma (2004, 42), was something the American sexologist Alfred
Kinsey could only dream of in 1948.
Recriminalization, and Emancipation

The Enlightened view that sex was a private matter had been bolstered by
the Netherlands’ 1848 velvet revolution, which gave the country a new,
democratic constitution and ushered in the decades-long dominance of
liberals, both in politics and within the Netherlands Reformed Church
(NRC). The latter had lost its former status as public church but remained
the country’s largest, despite the secession of some dissatisfied Calvin-
ists in 1834. But the 1848 constitution also led to the emancipation of
Catholics and to an internal democratization of the NRC, from which
“neo-Calvinists” in particular benefitted. From the 1870s onwards, both
orthodox Protestants and Catholics challenged the hegemony of liber-
alism by establishing their own schools, political parties, media, and a
gamut of other civil society organizations—a process known as “pillar-
ization” (verzuiling; Lijphart 1989). Under the leadership of Abraham
Kuyper—doctor of theology, minister of religion, editor-in-chief of an
orthodox Protestant newspaper, and founder of an orthodox Protestant
political party and university—large numbers of neo-Calvinists seceded
from the NRC in 1886. They merged with some of the 1834 Secessionists
into the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands (RCN), which became
the country’s second largest Protestant denomination.
In 1901–1905, Kuyper headed the country’s first confessional cabinet:
a coalition of orthodox Protestants and Catholics. In 1911, they raised
the legal age of consent for homosexual contact to twenty-one instead

of sixteen years. This discriminatory legislative provision, Section 248-
bis of the Criminal Code, was inspired by the idea that homosexuality
was transferred through “seduction.” It formed part of a whole raft of
morality laws which also outlawed brothels, abortion, and the distri-
bution or display of pornography and contraceptives (Koenders 1996).
On its grounds, around five thousand men and a few women—some
of them barely twenty-one—would be prosecuted, and around twenty-
eight hundred were convicted. Numerous repeat offenders bought their
freedom by submitting to castration (Van der Meer and Hekma 2011).
This legal provision also led to indirect repression by soliciting blackmail
and giving the police a pretext to monitor the places where birds of this
feather flocked together.
On the other hand, “248-bis” unintentionally galvanized emancipa-
tion. In 1912, the aristocratic lawyer Jacob Schorer and two physi-
cians established the first homosexual advocacy organization outside
Germany—initially as a Dutch chapter of Magnus Hirschfeld’s Scientific
Humanitarian Committee (Wissenschaftlich-humanitäres Komitee, WhK,
est. 1897; see Brunotte, in this volume). Despite, and partly even thanks
to, the severe criticism it received from Catholic organizations and peri-
odicals, the Dutch Committee (NWHK) broke the silence on same-sex
sexuality. It sent members of parliament, judges, doctors, and university
students its annual report—twenty thousand copies in 1939—or educa-
tional brochures such as “What everyone should know about Uranism”
(Schorer 1912; cf. Van der Meer and Hekma 2011).
“God Knows”
In 1864, the German lawyer Karl Heinrich Ulrichs had coined “Uranism”
and “Uranian” (Urning; adjective: urnisch). Unlike “homosexuality”—
launched by the Hungarian writer Károly Mária Kertbeny, alias Benkert,
five years later—these expressions had religious connotations. They
referred to an epithet of Aphrodite, highlighting her role as goddess
of heavenly love. The notion that same-sex attraction was—at least—
equal to the earthly, “common” love represented by Aphrodite Pandemos
appealed to some Dutchmen too (Van der Meer 2007b, 20).
When the editor of a Dutch medical journal (Donkersloot 1870) called
Ulrichs “nothing more or less than a pederast,” an anonymous physician
replied—in a letter, published thirteen years later—that he was just like
28 D. J. BOS
Ulrichs, “a Uranian, not a pederast, as little as thou art; Uranian am I,

that is: a human being with a man’s body and a woman’s soul. … Uranism
happens to exist and has always existed among mankind; we Uranians
happen to exist. Why? I don’t know. God knows, who created all,
including us” (quoted in Donkersloot 1883). While “Uranism” alluded
to a pre-Christian pantheon, it apparently also allowed for inscribing
same-sex sexuality into monotheism.
The oldest known Dutch text mentioning “homosexual/ity” is the
1872 translation of a German book on “European Court Scandals,” in
which the author suggests that the medieval French king Charles the
Simple “lived for homosexual pleasure” (Europeesche Hofschandalen 1872,
28). According to the Dutch expert (Hekma 2004, 56), the expression
was not used again until twenty years later in a medical book review
(Van Renterghem 1892). However, I recently found an earlier and more
public text from 1886. It is an essay in the Java-Bode—the leading news-
paper in the Netherlands East Indies—about life and death in Deli, a
Dutch protectorate in northeast Sumatra, where plantations employed
thousands of “coolies,” including many Chinese. The author2 describes
the appalling working and living conditions of these migrant workers:
hard work, corporal punishment, overpopulated houses, muddy roads,
unhealthy food, lack of safe drinking water, but no lack of alcohol, opium,
or diseases. Unlike hospitals on Java, he writes, Deli hospitals not only see
many cases of beriberi or marsh fever but also
ailments resulting from practices of which the apostle Paul already warned
the Romans. Indeed, the immorality among the Chinese is almost incred-
ible. Here, homosexuality is not—as with Western nations—an incidental,
singular fact but a permanent condition.
Contrary to what the reference to a biblical text (Romans 1:26) may

suggest, the author was not a sexual conservative: to “reduce, if not
exterminate this evil” he proposed allowing brothels, “which one can call
safety valves of public morality” (“Delische pennekrassen” 1886). What is
remarkable about this second usage of homosexualiteit in Dutch print is
the geographic and social “liminality” to which it refers: poor, unhealthy,
2 Probably Samuel Kalff, a Dutch journalist and man of letters, who also published
“pen scratches” about his travels through Europe and other parts of the Dutch Indies (cf.
Zuiderweg 2017, 30–40).
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LARGE ENGLISH
Prunus domestica
1. Oberdieck Deut. Obst. Sort. 443. 1881. 2. Mathieu Nom. Pom. 429,
433. 1889.
Englische Zwetsche 2. Grosse Englische Zwetsche 2. Grosse Englische
Zwetsche 1, 2. Grosse Englische Pflaumen Zwetsche 2. Grosse
Zwetsche? 2. Schweizer Zwetsche 2 incor.
This appears to be a most excellent plum closely resembling the

Italian Prune and surpassing that well-known variety in some
respects. As compared with Italian Prune, the fruit of Large English
runs larger, is slightly more conical, having the ventral swelling near
the base, thus giving it more of a shoulder. The flavor is sweeter and
richer than that of the Italian Prune. There appear to be practically no
differences between the trees, the foliage and the flowers of the two
kinds. Wherever the Italian is successfully grown it may be well
worth while to try the Large English. The relation the word English
has to this prune is unknown. Oberdieck, in 1881, wrote that this
variety resembled the Italian Prune in fruit, but differed in that it had
a noticeably broader leaf; he adds “it has been incorrectly called the
Swiss Prune and is much spread in Germany under the name of
Italian Prune.” E. R. Lake, of the United States Department of
Agriculture, brought it to America, in 1901, from the Pomological
Institute, Reutlingen, Wurtemburg, Germany. Lake’s stock was
tested at this Station and the variety agrees with Oberdieck’s
description.
Tree of average size, vigorous, upright-spreading, dense-topped,

productive; branchlets with, long internodes; leaf-scars enlarged; leaves
folded upward, oval or obovate, nearly one and three-quarters inches
wide, three and one-half inches long, thick, rugose; margin crenate or
almost serrate, eglandular or with small dark glands; petiole pubescent,
tinged red, with from two to four globose glands; blooming season
intermediate in time, short; flowers appearing after the leaves, one inch
across; petals long, narrow, white, in the buds tipped with yellow; borne
singly or in pairs; stamens tend to become petals.
Fruit late, season of medium length; one and three-quarters inches by
one and one-half inches in size, long-ovate, purplish-black, with thick
bloom; dots numerous, conspicuous; flesh yellowish with a trace of red at
full maturity at both skin and stone, juicy, very sweet, aromatic, with a
pleasant flavor; very good to best; stone free, the cavity larger than the pit,
often brownish-red, one inch by five-eighths inch in size, irregular-oval,
flattened, with an oblique apex; ventral suture prominent, usually with a
distinct wing; dorsal suture with a wide, deep groove.
LATE MIRABELLE
Prunus insititia
1. Lond. Hort. Soc. Cat. 150. 1831. 2. Barry Fr. Garden 339. 1851. 3.
Downing Fr. Trees Am. 388. 1857. 4. Hogg Fruit Man. 353. 1866. 5.
Downing Fr. Trees. Am. 901. 1869. 6. Pom. France 7: No. 20. 1871. 7.
Mas Le Verger 6:7. 1866-73. 8. Cat. Cong. Pom. France 352. 1887. 9.
Mathieu Nom. Pom. 442, 449. 1889. 10. Guide Prat. 162, 360. 1895. 11.
Baltet Cult. Fr. 493. 1908.
Bricette 9. Bricetta 5. Bricet 5, 9. Bricette 6, 8, 10. Brisette 6, 7, 10.
Bricette 4. Die Brisette 9. Kleine Brisette 9. La Bricette 9. Mirabelle Tardive
1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11. Mirabelle Tardive 4, 5, 6, 9. Mirabelle d’Octobre 2.
Mirabelle d’Octobre 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10. October Mirabelle 9. Petit Bricette 5,
9. Petite Bricette 4, 6, 10. Runde Brisette 9. Späte Mirabelle 6, 8, 9, 10.
In France, where all of the Mirabelles are highly esteemed, the

Late Mirabelle is much grown because of its season. The variety is
practically unknown in America, but, judging from its behavior at
Geneva, well deserves widespread trial, as do all the Mirabelles. The
history of this variety is unknown other than that it is an old sort,
having been mentioned in the London Horticultural Society catalog
as long ago as 1831. In 1851, Barry, of Rochester, New York,
described the Mirabelle d’Octobre, which is identical with Late
Mirabelle, and said that it had been recently introduced from France.
Tree medium in size and vigor, very hardy, productive; branches

smooth; leaves small, oval, one and one-quarter inches wide, two inches
long; margin finely serrate, with few, dark glands; petiole slender,
glandless or with one or two glands at the base of the leaf.
Fruit late; small, roundish-oval, greenish-yellow, often with a light blush
on the sunny side, covered with thin bloom; stem short, slender; flesh
yellow, very juicy, aromatic, sweet; good; stone semi-free.
LATE MUSCATELLE
Prunus domestica
1. Lucas Vollst. Hand. Obst. 470. 1894. 2. Can. Exp. Farm Bul. 2nd Ser.
3:53. 1900. 3. U. S. D. A. Div. Pom. Bul. 10:22. 1901.
Late Muscatel 2. Späte Muskateller 3. Späte Muskatellerpflaume 1.
This variety was obtained by the United States Department of

Agriculture from the Pomological Institute at Reutlingen, Germany, in
1900, and was soon after sent to this Station to test. In some
respects, in fruit-characters in particular, the variety is promising, but
not sufficiently so to recommend it to fruit-growers, even for trial.
Tree of medium size and vigor, upright-spreading, productive;

branchlets thick; with short internodes, pubescent; leaf-scars prominent;
leaves drooping, folded upward, obovate, one and five-eighths inches
wide, three and three-eighths inches long, leathery; margin crenate,
eglandular or with few, small, dark glands; petiole thick, pubescent,
glandless or with from one to three glands; blooming season intermediate
in time; and length; flowers appearing after the leaves, one inch across;
borne in scattering clusters, singly or in pairs; petals white, creamy-white
as they open; anthers tinged red.
Fruit late, season short; medium in size, roundish, slightly truncate,
purplish-brown, splashed and mottled with russet about the base,
overspread with thick bloom; flesh greenish-yellow, sweet; good to very
good; stone often reddish, clinging, three-quarters inch by one-half inch in
size, somewhat flat, irregular-oval, with slightly pitted surfaces.
LATE ORLEANS
LATE ORLEANS
Prunus domestica
1. Lond. Hort. Soc. Cat. 151. 1831. 2. Mag. Hort. 164. 1843. 3. Jour.
Hort. N. S. 15:301. 1868. 4. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 927. 1869. 5. Guide
Prat. 161, 360. 1895. 6. Garden 49:268. 1896. 7. Rivers Cat. 33. 1898.
Black Orleans 1, 2, 5. Late Black Orleans 3, 4. Late Black Orleans 5.
Late Orleans 5. Monsieur Noir Tardif 5. Orleans Late Black 5.
This is another variety having only a European reputation to

recommend it in America. The fruits of Late Orleans are handsome
in color and shape, but are not large enough to enable them to
compete in the markets with other late purple plums and are so poor
in quality as to be worthless as dessert fruits. In Europe the variety is
rated high for culinary purposes and fruit-growers there like it
because it hangs well to the tree and keeps and ships well. The
trees are very satisfactory in practically all respects. It is doubtful if
the variety is worth further trial in America.
Late Orleans was mentioned in the catalog of the Horticultural
Society of London in 1831, but was not described. No account
seems to have ever been published of its origin, but it is probably
related to or descended from the Orleans since they are very similar
in tree and shape of fruit, differing only in size and color of fruit.
Tree large, vigorous, round-topped, hardy, very productive; branches

smooth, dark ash-gray, with numerous, small lenticels; branchlets medium
to slender, with long internodes, greenish-red changing to dull reddish-
brown, dull, pubescent, marked with gray scarf-skin and with small
lenticels; leaf-buds intermediate in size and length, conical, appressed.
Leaves flattened, oval or obovate, one and one-quarter inches wide, two
and one-quarter inches long; upper surface sparingly pubescent, with a
deeply grooved midrib; lower surface heavily pubescent along the midrib;
apex abruptly pointed, base broadly cuneate, margin finely crenate, with
small, dark glands; petiole one-half inch long, slender, pubescent, faintly
tinged with red, glandless or with from one to four small, globose,
yellowish glands usually on the stalk.
Flowers appearing after the leaves, one inch across, white; borne on
lateral buds and spurs, singly or in pairs; pedicels one-half inch long,
glabrous, greenish; calyx-tube, green, obconic, glabrous; calyx-lobes
obtuse, pubescent, glandular-serrate and with marginal hairs, erect; petals
roundish or broadly ovate, entire, short-clawed; anthers yellow with a
reddish tinge; filaments five-sixteenths inch long; pistil glabrous, equal to
the stamens in length.
Fruit late, season long; about one and one-half inches in diameter,
roundish, slightly compressed, halves equal; cavity shallow, narrow,
flaring; suture a line; apex roundish; color dark purple, overspread with
thick bloom; dots few, reddish-brown; stem three-quarters inch long,
pubescent at the base, adhering well to the fruit; skin toughish, slightly
astringent, separating readily; flesh golden-yellow, dry, tender, sweet, mild;
fair in quality; stone clinging, one inch by five-eighths inch in size, oval,
flattened, slightly roughened, blunt at the base and apex; ventral suture
rather narrow, blunt; dorsal suture widely and deeply grooved.
LAWRENCE
Prunus domestica
1. Cultivator 10:167. 1843. 2. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 54. 1852. 3. Elliott Fr.
Book 412. 1854. 4. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 928. 1869. 5. Pom. France 7:
No. 29. 1871. 6. Mas Le Verger 6:75. 1866-73. 7. Hogg Fruit Man. 710.
1884. 8. Cat. Cong. Pom. France 349. 1887. 9. Guide Prat. 364. 1895. 10.
Waugh Plum Cult. 112. 1901.
Favorite de Lawrence 6, 9. Lawrence Favorite 5. Lawrences Reine
Claude 9. Lawrence’s Favorite 1, 2, 3, 4, 7. Lawrence’s Gage 1, 3, 4, 6, 7,
9. Lawrence’s Favorite 6, 8, 9, 10. Lawrence Gage 8. Prune Lawrence
Gage 5. Reine-Claude de Lawrence 6, 9. Reine-Claude de Lawrence 4, 5,
8.
This variety is surpassed in the quality of its fruits by few plums.

The trees bear young and abundantly and the fruit hangs well on the
tree; unfortunately, the plums do not ship nor keep well and the
variety thus fails as a market sort. It is, however, a delicious dessert
fruit, deserving to be grown in every plum connoisseur’s garden.
Lawrence is a seedling of Reine Claude, and was grown by L. V.
Lawrence of Hudson, New York, some time during the second
quarter of the last century. As its large size and superior quality
became known its popularity increased, until it was cultivated not
only in America, but to some extent throughout western Europe.
During the last twenty-five years, however, it has waned in
popularity, having been superseded by better commercial varieties,
though it still ranks high as a dessert plum. The American
Pomological Society placed Lawrence in its catalog in 1852, and
retained it there until 1899.
Tree large, vigorous, upright-spreading, productive; trunk and branches

rough, with large lenticels; branchlets brash, dark reddish-brown,
pubescent; leaves folded upward, oval, two inches wide, three and three-
quarters inches long, thick, leathery, rugose; margin doubly serrate, with
small glands; petiole pubescent, usually with two small glands.
Fruit medium early; one and three-eighths inches in diameter, roundish,
greenish-yellow, covered with thin bloom; skin thin, tender, slightly
astringent; flesh yellowish, fibrous, tender, sweet, aromatic; very good;
stone free, seven-eighths inch by five-eighths inch in size, oval, turgid,
nearly smooth.
LINCOLN
Prunus domestica
1. Lovett Cat. fig. 44. 1890-1900. 2. Rural N. Y. 56:595 fig. 253, 598.
1897. 3. Mich. Sta. Bul. 169:242, 246. 1899. 4. Ohio Sta. Bul. 113:159.
1899. 5. Can. Exp. Farm Bul. 2d Ser. 3:53. 1900. 6. Waugh Plum Cult.
114. 1901. 7. Budd-Hansen Am. Hort. Man. 317, 318 fig. 1903. 8. Am.
Pom. Soc. Rpt. 254. 1903. 9. Ohio Sta. Bul. 162:236, 238 fig., 256, 257.
1905. 10. Mass. Sta. An. Rpt. 17:159. 1905.
Lincoln has never been popular in New York, but in Pennsylvania

and New Jersey it is well thought of for home use and the markets.
The trees in this State grow slowly and when fully grown are rather
inferior. This is one of the sorts recommended to be top-worked on
better growing varieties but, as has been said before in these notes,
top-working in New York is far more often a failure than a success
with plums. The fruit of this variety is unusually attractive in size and
color and for quality it may be named among the best of the red
plums. Unfortunately, the variety is readily infected by the brown-rot
which when epidemic cannot be controlled. Lincoln has been so well
tested in New York without becoming popular with plum-growers that
it is hardly worth recommending for further trial, though the fruits in
particular have much merit.
This plum originated in York County, Pennsylvania, about forty-five
years ago, supposedly from seed of the Reine Claude, and was
named after Abraham Lincoln. If it be a Reine Claude seedling it
comes from a cross with some other variety, since it shows many
characters not in Reine Claude. Lincoln was introduced by J. T.
Lovett and Company, Little Silver, New Jersey.
Tree of medium size, vigorous, upright-spreading, but somewhat

variable in habit, dense-topped, hardy, productive; branches ash-gray,
rough; branchlets somewhat slender, short, with long internodes,
greenish-red changing to brownish-red, dull, sparingly pubescent
throughout the season, overspread with thin bloom, with small,
inconspicuous lenticels; leaf-buds large, long, pointed, free; leaf-scars
prominent.
Leaves somewhat folded backward, oval or obovate, two inches wide,
four inches long, rather stiff; upper surface slightly rugose, pubescent only
in the shallow, grooved midrib; lower surface silvery-green, pubescent;
apex abruptly pointed, base acute, margin doubly crenate, with small, dark
glands; petiole nearly one inch long, pubescent, reddish, with from one to
four rather large, globose or reniform, yellowish glands variable in position.
Season of bloom medium; flowers appearing after the leaves, over one
inch across, white; borne on lateral spurs and buds, singly or in pairs;
pedicels about seven-eighths inch long, slender, pubescent, greenish;
calyx-tube green, campanulate, thinly pubescent; calyx-lobes broad,
acute, somewhat pubescent on both surfaces, glandular-serrate, with
marginal hairs, reflexed; petals oval, crenate, with claws of medium width;
anthers yellow; filaments three-eighths inch or more in length; pistil
glabrous, shorter than the stamens.
Fruit early, season short; somewhat variable but averaging about two
inches by one and five-eighths inches in size, oblong-oval, slightly necked,
halves usually equal; cavity very shallow, narrow, abrupt; suture shallow;
apex roundish or depressed; color light or dark red over a yellow ground,
overspread with thin bloom; dots numerous, small, light russet; stem one
inch long, lightly pubescent, adhering poorly to the fruit; skin thick, rather
sour, separating readily; flesh greenish-yellow, juicy, coarse and fibrous,
firm but tender, sweet, mild, pleasant; good to very good; stone nearly
free, one and one-eighth inches by five-eighths inch in size, long-oval,
flattened, necked at the base, blunt at the apex, with markedly rough and
deeply pitted surfaces; ventral suture narrow, distinctly furrowed, with a
short wing; dorsal suture with a narrow groove of medium depth.
LOMBARD
LOMBARD
Prunus domestica
1. Kenrick Am. Orch. 268. 1832. 2. Ibid. 224. 1841. 3. Downing Fr.
Trees Am. 303 fig. 124. 1845. 4. Thomas Am. Fruit Cult. 345 fig. 265.
1849. 5. Goodrich N. Fr. Cult. 84. 1849. 6. Elliott Fr. Book 412. 1854. 7.
Am. Pom. Soc. Rpt. 190, 210. 1856. 8. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 929 fig.
1869. 9. Mas Le Verger 6:151, fig. 76. 1866-73. 10. Country Gent. 48:981.
1883. 11. Mathieu Nom. Pom. 423. 1889. 12. Guide Prat. 160, 359. 1895.
13. Mich. Sta. Bul. 169:242, 246. 1899. 14. Ia. Sta. Bul. 46:279. 1900. 15.
Waugh Plum Cult. 114 fig. 1901. 16. Can. Exp. Farm Bul. 43:34. 1903. 17.
Ohio Sta. Bul. 162:240, 256, 257. 1905.
Beekman’s Scarlet 3, 6, 8, 11, 12. Bleecker’s Scarlet 3, 4, 6, 8, 12.
Bleeker’s Scarlet 11. Bleeker’s Rotepflaume 11. Bleekers Rothe Pflaume
12. Bleeckers Rothe Pflaume 9. Lombard 11. Lombard Plum 1.
Montgomery Prune 8, 11. Prune Rouge De Bleeker 9, 11. Rouge de
Bleecker 12. Spanish King? 14, 15. Variegated Plum 1.
The Lombard plum is known by all. It is not as largely planted in

New York as a few other varieties, but it is probably more widely
grown than any other plum if the whole continent be considered. The
preeminently meritorious characters which enable it to take first
place in American plum-growing are: The elasticity of its constitution
whereby it adapts itself to widely different soils and climates; the
robustness, healthiness, productiveness and regularity in bearing of
its trees; the fact that the fruits are comparatively free from the
scourge of the crescent sign, plum-curculio; and, lastly, its showy
fruits tempting to the eye and readily salable. The tree-characters of
Lombard are all good, making so superior a tree that it, more than
any other variety, is recommended as a stock upon which to graft
weak-growing plums. It is a virile variety and from it have come a
considerable number of offspring mostly from self-fertilized seeds
which have given us several nearly related varieties and strains.
There are also a few very good cross-bred plums of which Lombard
was one parent. Lombard would be preeminently the plum “for the
millions” were it not for a fatal fault—it is very poor in quality.
Canned, cooked, preserved or spiced, it does very well, but as a
dessert fruit it falls in a category with the Ben Davis apple and Kieffer
pear, “good-looking but poor.” The variety ripens so early as to come
in direct competition with the peach and this hurts it not a little as a
market plum. To be at its best the crop should be thinned and should
be allowed to ripen fully on the trees. Lombard is now much used in
the canneries in New York and is also planted in home orchards
where only hardy plums stand the climate. In the markets it is usually
a low-priced plum.
Lombard was raised by Judge Platt, Whitesboro, New York, from
seed received from Amsterdam (References, 2). Another writer
(References, 10) reports that the trees were brought over from
Holland by some of the earliest Dutch settlers of Utica and
Whitesboro. The name was given to the plum about 1830 by the
Massachusetts Horticultural Society in honor of Daniel Lombard of
Springfield, who was the first to propagate the variety in that state. It
was previously well known in New York as Bleecker’s Scarlet
(References, 3), but was never formally described under that name
which must, therefore, though the older, be discarded. In 1856, it
was placed on the recommended list by the American Pomological
Society. Several varieties, as Communia, Tatge, Spanish King and
Odell, are very similar, if not identical to the Lombard and,
consequently, have caused much confusion in the nomenclature of
the variety. This similarity is probably explained by the fact that the
Lombard produces seedlings very nearly true to type. Professor J. L.
Budd, in a letter written in 1898 to this Station, says, “The fruit of
Communia is much like that of Lombard, but this can be said of a
hundred or more east European varieties.” Professor Budd had
traveled much in Europe and knew plums very well. His statement,
therefore, is entitled to credence and indicates, together with other
circumstances, that Lombard is one of an old group of plums the
varieties of which are very similar.
Tree of medium size, round-topped, very hardy, productive; branches

stocky, dark ash-gray, smooth, with few, small lenticels; branchlets thick,
medium to long, with long internodes, greenish-red changing to dull
brownish-red, marked with gray scarf-skin, glabrous early in the season,
becoming pubescent at maturity, with a few, inconspicuous, small
lenticels; leaf-buds of medium size and length, conical, appressed; leaf-
scars prominent.
Leaves long-oval or long-obovate, one and five-eighths inches wide,
three and one-half inches long, medium to thick; upper surface dark
green, thinly pubescent, with a grooved midrib; lower surface silvery-
green, lightly pubescent; apex acute, base somewhat tapering, margin
often doubly serrate, eglandular or with small, dark glands; petiole one-
half inch long, thick, tinged red, pubescent, glandless or with one or two
globose, yellowish-green glands usually at the base of the leaf.
Blooming season short; flowers appearing after the leaves, one inch
across, the buds creamy-yellow, changing to white on expanding; borne in
clusters on short, lateral spurs, singly or in pairs; pedicels nine-sixteenths
inch long, slender, nearly glabrous; calyx-tube greenish, campanulate,
pubescent only at the base; calyx-lobes obtuse, pubescent on both
surfaces, glandular-serrate, strongly reflexed; petals oval, entire or
occasionally notched at the apex, short-clawed; anthers yellow; filaments
five-sixteenths inch long; pistil pubescent only on the ovary, longer than
the stamens.
Fruit mid-season, ripening period long; one and three-quarters inches
by one and five-eighths inches in size, oval or roundish-oval, slightly
compressed, halves unequal; cavity narrow, abrupt, roundish; suture
usually a line; apex roundish or flattened; color light to dark purplish-red,
overspread with thick bloom; dots numerous, small, light russet; stem
slender, three-quarters inch long, adhering well to the fruit; skin thin,
tender, separating readily; flesh yellowish, juicy, slightly fibrous, firm and
sweet, mild; inferior in quality; stone semi-free to free, one inch by five-
eighths inch in size, dark colored, oval, flattened, roughened; base and
apex acute; ventral suture slightly furrowed, acute; dorsal suture widely
and rather deeply grooved.
LONG FRUIT
Prunus triflora
1. Wild Bros. Cat. 27. 1892. 2. Cornell Sta. Bul. 62:26. 1894. 3. Am.
Pom. Soc. Cat. 26. 1897-99. 4. Waugh Plum Cult. 138. 1901.
Long Fruited 1.
Long Fruit is noted among the leading varieties of plums in The

Plums of New York chiefly to condemn it. On the grounds of this
Station and elsewhere in New York where tested, the trees are
unproductive, the crop drops badly and the fruits are small and poor
in quality. The variety was imported from Japan in 1885 by Luther
Burbank.
Tree large, vigorous, vasiform to spreading, unproductive; branches

roughened by numerous raised lenticels; branchlets slender, with short
internodes, glabrous, marked by scarf-skin; leaves oblanceolate,
somewhat peach-like, one inch wide, two and one-half inches long, thin;
margin finely crenate, with small, amber glands; petiole slender, tinged
with red, glandless or with from one to five small glands usually on the
stalk; blooming season early; flowers appearing after the leaves, seven-
eighths inch across; borne singly or in pairs; calyx-tube much swollen at
the base.
Fruit early; one inch by one and one-eighth inches in size, roundish-
oblate; cavity deep; color dark red over a yellow ground, covered with thin
bloom; stem slender, adhering poorly to the fruit; skin thick, somewhat
astringent; flesh greenish-yellow or pale yellow, tender, sweet, mild; poor
in quality; stone semi-clinging, small, one-half inch by three-eighths inch in
size, roundish-oval, turgid, blunt at the base, the apex terminating abruptly
in a small, sharp point, with smooth surfaces.
LUCOMBE
Prunus domestica
1. Pom. Mag. 3:99. 1830. 2. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 281. 1845. 3. Floy-
Lindley Guide Orch. Gard. 284, 383. 1846. 4. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 222.
1858. 5. Hogg Fruit Man. 711. 1884. 6. Guide Prat. 163, 358. 1895. 7.
Waugh Plum Cult. 117. 1901. 8. Budd-Hansen Am. Hort. Man. 320. 1903.
Incomparable de Lucombe 6. Lucombe’s Nonesuch 2, 3, 5. Lucombe’s
Nonsuch 1, 4. Lucombe’s Nonsuch 6, 7. Lucombe’s Unvergleichliche 6.
Lucombe’s Nonesuch 8. Luccombe’s Nonesuch 3. Nonsuch 7. Nonesuch
8.
This old plum has a reputation of high excellence and is well

entitled to it. Despite the fact that it must compete for favor with such
estimable plums as Reine Claude, Washington and Hand, belonging
to the same group with these, it is still much grown in England and is
well thought of for home use in America. Hardly in accordance with
its reputation, it was rejected by the American Pomological Society in
1858 for a place in its list of fruits. Lucombe originated as a seedling
about 1825 with a Mr. Lucombe of Lucombe, Prince and Company,
nurserymen, at Exeter, England, and was first described by Lindley
in 1830 in the Pomological Magazine.
Tree large, of medium vigor, upright-spreading, productive; branches

covered with numerous fruit-spurs; twigs very short, with heavy
pubescence; leaves one and three-quarters inches wide, three and one-
quarter inches long, dark green; margin finely serrate or crenate, with
small, dark glands; petiole pubescent, glandless or with one or two small
glands usually at the base of the leaf; blooming season intermediate,
short; flowers appearing after the leaves; petals with a yellowish tinge as
the buds unfold; borne on long naked spurs with tufts of leaves and
flowers at the ends, singly or in pairs.
Fruit mid-season, period of ripening long; one and three-eighths inches
by one and one-half inches in size, roundish-oblate or roundish-obovate,
greenish-yellow, becoming golden-yellow, indistinctly splashed and
streaked with green, covered with thin bloom; flesh golden-yellow, firm,
sweet, pleasant, mild; very good; stone free, three-quarters inch by five-
eighths inch in size, roundish, slightly necked, with pitted surfaces.
MAQUOKETA
MAQUOKETA
Prunus hortulana mineri
1. Mich. Pom. Soc. Rpt. 290. 1889. 2. Ia. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 55, 85. 1890.
3. Cornell Sta. Bul. 38:40. 1892. 4. Mich. Sta. Bul. 118:53. 1895. 5. Ibid.
123:20. 1895. 6. Ia. Sta. Bul. 31:346. 1895. 7. Wis. Sta. Bul. 63:46. 1897.
8. Budd-Hansen Am. Hort. Man. 298. 1903. 9. Ga. Sta. Bul. 67:277. 1904.
10. Ohio Sta. Bul. 162:256, 257. 1905.
Maquoketa is distinguished as one of the best of the native plums

for culinary purposes. Nearly all of the plums brought in from the wild
in America have so much astringency, most of it coming from the
skins, that they are impalatable to some. Now and then a variety is
nearly free from this disagreeable taste and Maquoketa is one of
these. The quality, as a dessert fruit, is very good for a native and
the fruits keep and ship well. In the South the plums are subject to
both curculio and brown-rot. The trees, like those of nearly all of the
Miner-like plums, are rather better formed and more adaptable to
orchard conditions than those of other species. After the Americana
and Nigra plums, Maquoketa is one of the hardiest of our native
varieties, growing even in Minnesota. The variety belongs in the
South and Middle West and there are few, if any, places in New York
where it is worth growing.
The origin of this plum is uncertain. It is reported in the references
given as a native found on the banks of the Maquoketa River in
eastern Iowa and also as a Miner seedling grown under cultivation. It
has been known to fruit-growers since about 1889.
Tree of medium size and vigor, spreading, low-topped, open, hardy,

variable in productiveness, susceptible to attacks of shot-hole fungus, the
trunk shaggy; branches slender, rough, zigzag, with few thorns, dark, dull
ash-gray, with numerous lenticels; branchlets slender, long, with
internodes of medium length, green, changing to dull reddish-brown,
glabrous, with numerous, conspicuous, small, slightly raised lenticels; leaf-
buds very small, short, obtuse, appressed.
Leaves falling early, folded upward, broadly lanceolate, peach-like, one
and three-quarters inches wide, four and one-half inches long; upper
surface light green, changing to a dull red late in the fall, glossy, glabrous,
with a narrowly grooved midrib and veins; lower surface silvery-green,
thinly pubescent; apex taper-pointed, base rather abrupt; margin with
serrations in two series, with very small, black glands; petiole five-eighths
inch long, tinged with dull red, hairy, with from one to four globose, rather
large, dark brownish-yellow glands.
Blooming season late and of medium length; flowers appearing after the
leaves, one inch across, yellowish as the buds begin to open, changing to
white, with a disagreeable odor; borne in clusters on lateral spurs and
buds, varying from two to four flowers in a cluster; pedicels five-eighths
inch long, slender, glabrous, greenish; calyx-tube green, narrowly
campanulate, glabrous; calyx-lobes narrow, slightly obtuse, nearly
glabrous on the outer surface, but pubescent within, serrate, with dark
colored glands and marginal hairs, reflexed; petals oval or ovate, with
long, tapering claws of medium width, sparingly hairy at the base; anthers
yellowish; filaments seven-sixteenths inch in length; pistil glabrous,
slender, shorter than the stamens.
Fruit late, ripening period short; below medium in size, ovate or
roundish-ovate, halves equal; cavity shallow, rather wide, rounded, flaring;
suture a distinct line; apex roundish or slightly pointed; colors some time
before fully ripe becoming dark carmine, covered with thin bloom; dots
numerous, small to medium, light brown, clustered about the apex; stem
rather slender, glabrous, parting readily; skin thick, tough, astringent,
semi-adherent, removing a thin layer of pulp when detached; flesh deep
yellow, juicy, coarse, fibrous, nearly melting next to the skin, becoming
firmer toward the center, sweet at first but astringent near the pit, with a
strong flavor; inferior in quality; stone adhering, of medium size, oval,
turgid, bluntly pointed at the base and apex, with slightly roughened
surfaces; ventral suture acute, ridged; dorsal suture a narrow, shallow
groove.
MARIANNA
MARIANNA
Prunus cerasifera × ?
1. Ga. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 28. 1886. 2. Gard. Mon. 29:148. 1887. 3. Am.
Pom. Soc. Cat. 38. 1889. 4. Neb. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 56. 1889. 5. Ill. Hort.
Soc. Rpt. 63. 1890. 6. Cornell Sta. Bul. 38:66, fig., 71, 83, 86. 1892. 7.
Tex. Sta. Bul. 32:479, 480 fig. 1894. 8. Rev. Hort. 278. 1894. 9. Rural N. Y.
54:600. 1895. 10. Mich. Sta. Bul. 152:210. 1898. 11. Bailey Ev. Nat. Fruits
208, 213. 1898. 12. Vt. Sta. An. Rpt. 13:336-369. 1900. 13. Waugh Plum
Cult. 36, 232. 1901. 14. Ga. Sta. Bul. 67:277. 1904. 15. S. Dak. Sta. Bul.
93:67. 1905.
Marianna has little or no value for its fruit. It is illustrated and

discussed at length in The Plums of New York for two reasons. First,
because it has long been an enigma which has baffled both
horticulturists and botanists; second, because it is extensively used
as a stock upon which other kinds of plums are propagated. In 1884,
a plum of unknown species was introduced to the trade. Some said
the new variety belonged to Prunus cerasifera and others that it was
an offspring of some native species. The characters of the first
named species are so apparent in Marianna that all are now agreed
that this variety is from either a self or a cross-fertilized seed of
Prunus cerasifera; if the latter the other parent must have been some
native species, the particular variety possibly being Wild Goose, one
of the Munsoniana plums. Its behavior on these grounds, its
robustness and semi-sterility and its not fitting exactly into any
known species, mark it as a hybrid. A curious character peculiar to
this variety is that it grows very readily from cuttings and for this
reason it is a cheap stock for plums of all kinds and is used even for
peaches and apricots. Besides rooting readily, the Marianna does
not sprout and may be budded as late or later than the peach. It is
chiefly used in propagation in the South, but, for reasons stated in
the discussion of stocks in Chapter II, the Marianna is not now
employed by nurserymen as largely as formerly, though there are
still conditions in which it is the best of stocks. The tree is a
handsome ornamental at any season of the year and its broad,
spreading top makes it a good shade tree.
Marianna originated as a seedling in a mixed orchard belonging to
Charles G. Fitze, Marianna, Polk County, Texas; its parentage is
unknown. The originator considered it a seedling of Wild Goose, but,
it is probably an offspring of DeCaradeuc and, as stated in the
foregoing paragraph, undoubtedly a hybrid. In 1884, Charles N. Eley,
Smith Point, Texas, introduced the Marianna to fruit-growers; in 1889

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Public Discourses About

Homosexuality and Religion in Europe

The Truth About Denial: Bias and Self-Deception in

Citizens and the Crisis: Experiences, Perceptions, and

Shaping Human Science Disciplines: Institutional

European Integration Beyond Brussels: Unity in East and

Faith-Based Organizations and Social Welfare:

How to Write about Economics and Public Policy 1st

Public Intellectuals and Their Discontents: From Europe

Secularity and Science: What Scientists Around the

ISBN 978-3-030-56325-7 ISBN 978-3-030-56326-4 (eBook)

Cover illustration: © Alex Linch shutterstock.com

This volume is a result of the research project “Contested Privates: The

The chapter by Ad de Bruijne is a fully revised version of an earlier essay

1 Public Discourses About Homosexuality and Religion

2 Hellish Evil, Heavenly Love: A Long-Term History

3 Sexuality, Religion, and Education: (Re)Production

4 A Postprogressive Nation: Homophobia, Islam,

5 Culture Wars About Sexuality: A Theological Proposal

6 Queering Judaism and Masculinist Inventions:

7 Antisemitism and Homophobia in Polish Liberal

8 The Changing Relation Between Sexual and Gender

9 Debating Homosexuality in Italy: Plural Religious

10 The Ultraconservative Agenda Against Sexual Rights

11 The Catholic Opposition to Gender and Sexual

12 Ecce Homo in Sweden and Serbia: State, Church,

13 “Gays as a Weapon of the Antichrist”: Religious

14 The Empire Speaks Back: Zambian Responses

15 Conservative Islamic Forces, Global LGBT Rights,

Céline Béraud is a professor at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences

at Humboldt-University Berlin, Germany, and chair of the international

training, he has been working on questions relating to cultural poli-

studies at the University of Sydney. He has published numerous articles on

Fig. 2.1 Number of texts mentioning sodom* or zodom* in a

Public Discourses About Homosexuality

Marco Derks and Mariecke van den Berg

© The Author(s) 2020 1

this volume we suggest that constructions of religion and homosexuality

majorities favor same-sex marriage in every Western European country

The specificity of our volume lies in its consistent focus on public

in Kulpa), or a particular concept or phenomenon (e.g., specific types of

Having explained this volume’s focus on public discourses, we now

The chapters offer analyses of public discourses about homosexu-

was long attributed to ethnic and religious outsiders, accepting it is nowa-

De Bruijne argues, “emancipatory liberals” could learn from the Chris-

intersectionality, rather than analogy, is a fruitful analytical approach to

chapters on postcommunist and postcolonial countries make comparisons

homosexuality is a vestige of former British colonial rule, which makes

Emerging Conflicts in North America and Europe, edited by Timothy Shah,

Hellish Evil, Heavenly Love: A Long-Term

According to international surveys, attitudes toward homosexuality (and

This work was supported by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific

© The Author(s) 2020 21

decreasing. What makes the Netherlands a remarkable case is that nega-

The Will to Know

Vrijer 1932). This biblical name implied a warning of the devastating,

1 All translations in this chapter are my own.

Recriminalization, and Emancipation

the legal age of consent for homosexual contact to twenty-one instead

Ulrichs, “a Uranian, not a pederast, as little as thou art; Uranian am I,

Contrary to what the reference to a biblical text (Romans 1:26) may

This appears to be a most excellent plum closely resembling the

Tree of average size, vigorous, upright-spreading, dense-topped,