Editing Violence against LGBTQ people (section)

=====Roman Empire=====
During the [[Roman Republic|Republican Era of Ancient Rome]], the poorly attested ''[[Lex Scantinia]]'' penalized any adult male for committing a [[sex crime]] ''([[stuprum]])'' against an [[Sexuality in ancient Rome#Sexuality and children|underage male citizen]] ''([[ingenui|ingenuus]])''. It is unclear whether the penalty was death or a fine. The law may also have been used to prosecute [[Sexuality in ancient Rome#Male sexuality|adult male citizens]] who willingly took a [[Pathicus|receiving passive role in same-sex penetrative intercourse]], but prosecutions are rarely recorded and the provisions of the law are vague; as [[John Boswell]] has noted. "If there was a law against carnally lustful relations between individuals of the same-sex, no one in around [[Cicero]]'s time knew anything about it".<ref>[[John Boswell]], ''Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century'' (University of Chicago Press, 1980), pp. 63, 67–68, quotation on p. 69. See also Craig Williams, ''Roman Homosexuality: Ideologies of Masculinity in Classical Antiquity'' (Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 116; [[Eva Cantarella]], ''Bisexuality in the Ancient World'' (Yale University Press, 1992), p. 106ff.; Thomas A.J. McGinn, ''Prostitution, Sexuality and the Law in Ancient Rome'' (Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 140–141; Amy, ''The Garden of Priapus: Sexuality and Aggression in Roman Humor'' (Oxford University Press, 1983, 1992), pp. 86, 224; Jonathan Walters, "Invading the Roman Body", in ''Roman Sexualites'' (Princeton University Press, 1997), pp. 33–35, noting particularly the overly broad definition of the ''Lex Scantinia'' by Adolf Berger, ''Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law'' (American Philosophical Society, 1953, reprinted 1991), pp. 559 and 719. Freeborn Roman men could engage in sex with males of lower status, such as prostitutes and slaves, without moral censure or losing their perceived masculinity, as long as they took the active, penetrating role; see [[Sexuality in ancient Rome]].</ref> 

When the entire [[Roman Empire]] came under [[Constantine the Great and Christianity|Christian rule]] beginning with [[Roman emperor|the reign]] of [[Constantine the Great]], all forms of sodomite activities between individuals (especially those of the same-sex) were increasingly repressed, often with the pain of death.<ref name="THEOD">(Theodosian Code 9.7.6): All persons who have the shameful custom of condemning a man's body in acting the part of a woman's body to the sufferance of alien sex (for they appear not to be different from women), shall expiate a crime of this kind in avenging flames in the sight of the people.</ref> In 342 CE, the Christian Roman emperors [[Constantius II|Constantius]] and [[Constans]] declared sodomite marriage to be illegal.<ref>[[Theodosian Code]] 9.8.3: ''"When a man marries and is about to offer himself to men in womanly fashion (quum vir nubit in feminam viris porrecturam), what does he wish, when sex has lost all its significance; when the crime is one which it is not profitable to know; when Venus is changed to another form; when love is sought and not found? We order the statutes to arise, the laws to be armed with an avenging sword, that those infamous persons who are now, or who hereafter may be, guilty may be subjected to exquisite punishment.''</ref> Shortly after around the year 390 CE. The Roman emperors [[Valentinian II]], [[Theodosius I]] and [[Arcadius]] declared all acts of sodomy to be an illegal criminal offense against the order of human nature in a civilized society and those who were found guilty of it are severely reprimanded and condemned to be publicly [[death by burning|burned to death]].<ref name="THEOD" /> Roman emperor [[Justinian I]] (527–565 CE) made sodomites a [[Scapegoating|scapegoat]] for problems such as "famines, earthquakes, and pestilences."<ref>Justinian ''Novels'' 77, 144; Michael Brinkschröde, "Christian Homophobia: Four Central Discourses", in ''Combatting Homophobia: Experiences and Analyses Pertinent to Education'' (LIT Verlag, 2011), p. 166.</ref>