If you were raised Christian, studied history, or have been to Rome, the catacombs are familiar things.

For those not familiar, the common understanding is that the catacombs were where the persecuted early Christians would hide, hold their services which were thought, to a certain extent, by the general public to involve cannibalism as the teaching of the Last Supper and the rite of worship were based on the invitation of the dinner host to eat his body and drink his blood, like he was at some sort of Progressive Democrat Party ritual.

The fact that the Christians refused to pay taxes to Caesar and that they apparently ate other humans was the main reason of dislike as the Romans were known for allowing people to worship however they wanted provided they helped with the upkeep of the empire in which they lived.

Whether we really know why the catacombs were needed as opposed myth and tradition, the obvious number of resting places for the deceased could be an indication it was not a regular hanging out place, but one with utility to comply with the Roman law forbidding graves within city limits with this obviously applying to the non-Romans and their religions as Romans cremated their deceased.

This was not persecution but hygiene in a crowded city.

Having Christians prepare for resurrection of the body on the last day would mean rather unhygienic conditions being forced on the majority in the demand for respect of religious belief.

As far as digging catacombs, other religions who required bodies be buried intact, like the Jewish religion, did the same. It went back to a pre-Rome Etruscan practice, and there was no need to hide entrances, so, many where rather elaborate for what the modern mind assumes was a life-saving secrecy.

Often people would gather for large feasts in honor of the dead, and no one can miss a parade of food heading for a fancy door behind which would be the pot-luck.

It was a situation of forbidding graves in the city, so Christians got around it by building tunnels with multiple shelves for the deceased, not graves. They played the law, and that is annoying if they also do not pay taxes like the Son of God told them to.

Although the commonly accepted belief is that the Early Christians built them as safe places for believers, in all honesty, the Romans had better things to do then look for the catacombs whose entrances were clearly visible.

It was in the 9th century that Germanic invaders pillaged the Catacombs in search of artwork, jewelry and coins buried with the dead. Rome was pretty Christian by then, so it wasn’t part of any persecution.

Considering them martyrs for the faith, although most died of other causes like age and disease, churches at that point started moving the bodies to churches and thus the tradition of finding old dead bodies contained in boxes and large clear, glass showcases with bodies in them in churches throughout Europe.

If the Romans had any complaints about the Christians who by and large were just part of the wider community, It was easier to go after the bad Christians when they were out on the street, so the safe places remained really or perceptively safe.

Today we find fault with the treatment of Christians by the Romans, often exaggerating stories to create heroes as if lions only ate Christians and ignored all the other religions in the arena on those occasions when they would use animals to attack lawbreakers in Spectacles which because of the cost to obtain and maintain such animals were not regular things.

The lions were not partial to Christians.

Whether people know the real history of the catacombs or accept the romantic tradition, it is clear that Christians know the value of safe spaces and the fear of their being invaded and the wrongness of it.

Considering the importance of the catacombs to religious tradition, teaching, and history, and using the whole Roman persecution of Christians as an example of harmful bigotry, it does seem odd in this day and age the Christians are going after others who, because of the treatment from Christians, had to establish their own catacombs, not to bury their dead, but to be themselves out of the eyes and subsequent treatment from the bigoted.

The speak-easy structure of the Roaring Twenties gave way in form and in some places locations to Gay bars.

In my youth, many bars had entrances out of sight of the general public, such as Chaps in Boston whose entrance was in the alley behind the Boston Public Library, while quite often people gathered at house parties. New York City had the Meat Rack area in the meat processing district because being abandoned at night, men could make their assignations, the ones many wished they could have in their own homes with no fear.

People condemned Gay men because of the lengths that society forced them to go to find the same level of love and the expression of it that Heterosexuals so freely had.

Bars often got raided on claims of purifying society, but looking closely at the raids, most were politically or financially based. A person wanting votes would pledge to clean up the sinful parts of the city, or, since in many places Gay bars were illegal as was even serving a Homosexual a drink in any bar, someone missed a protection payment and there was a cost to that. The Stonewall Inn comes to mind.

Unfortunately, unlike the Romans who may have been creeped out by this new religion and found the cannibal part a little disturbing, just let things be, religious zealotry has people not only looking for, but entering Gay bars to harass and kill patrons or wait in parking lots for people to attack as they leave a place in which they had just been and had felt safe.

Sadly, those doing most of this persecution are inheritors of a tradition where catacombs played their part as safe spaces for Christians who were being allegedly persecuted because of their beliefs, and they are attacking people who are not adherents to those of the persecutors’.

The Romans left the tax-reluctant, cannibal religion alone for the most part. Many of the Christians “martyred”, with the exception of the big-name ones, were merely law breakers who were punished along with other law breakers of any religion or none, not being singled out until the tax thing bothered Nero and he started going after scafflaws, not specifically Christians. And when Nero wanted to change the infrastructure of the city against objections and just let it burn, regardless of the actual cause, he blamed the minority he had been spreading falsehoods about, and having sufficiently instilled prejudices in those weak enough to accept them to give some body to his fiction, it worked.

He was making Rome great again.

Other than that, those Christians martyred may have been symbolic as a rejection of the state religion, but a closer look shows it was more complicated than that and the major martyrs had violated many more laws than just the religious ones.

Gay bars are not only a welcoming place to party, but community partners hosting a variety of social and educational events for things like Breast Cancer Awareness, HIV/AIDS prevention, food and housing assistance, and a place to strategize in the fight for legal and social acceptance.

For an oppressed minority, these bars, like the catacombs are believed to have been used, serve to build solidarity and community, and to promote education not only about self and community, but wider areas like politics and, yes, religion.

But, unlike the catacombs that were left alone, Gay bars have been sites of violence and persecution from those who have forced Gay people to establish safe places.

Originally, what were referred to as Bomenian clubs were also frequented by artists, musicians, theater people, and other non-traditionalists considered outside the bounds of respectable society.

Unlike the catacombs of early Christians in Imperial Rome which the Romans left alone, these bars which are meant to be places of safety and community that foster Gay Pride, progress in legal, social, and political strength and acceptance, the feeling that you belong of belonging, solidarity, and joy are too often the scenes of horrendous actions carried out by those who in  their own history know the importance of such places of safety, but refuse to allow it for those unlike them based on their chosen religious beliefs and nothing intrinsic.

If these people had been the wielder of the sword in the Garden at Gethsemane, rather than putting up the sword when Jesus told him to, they would have just kept on hacking away.

But, then again, in the name of Jesus, they go after their own gathering places with guns, or to the religious gathering places of others, and shoot them up.

The sword was not put up.

The rhetoric in the media and politically that demonizes GLBT people for simply existing and being who they are does influence the way that people think and feel justified in acting with strength coming from God getting invoked.

And the largest charge levelled by those who baptize babies then hold them to religious beliefs or face the wrath of God for eternity in a fiery pit, constantly accost passersby on the street with pamphlets, interrupt forward progress as they get in peoples’ way to begin the spiel, have the temerity to actually come to your home to see if they can recruit you for their religion, and will go where children are, schools, libraries, the street, and playgrounds, to groom them to be Christian according to whatever the accoster’s religious beliefs may be.

Violence is a major part of LGBTQ people’s lives. I have witnessed it in its extremity in regard to others and in more subtle but pervasive forms personally.  

Christians need to leave the Gay Catacombs alone.

.

.

.

.

.