Standing in opposition to the religious view of homosexuality as sin (), and the political view of homosexuality as exotic threat to the British nation, these texts connect with the classical pastoral tradition in which male same-sex erotic desire is both idealized and celebrated.

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The classical and thus "legitimate" pastoral, with its elaborate system of mythical references and coy Arcadian disguises, functioned much in the same way as the coded references to homosexuality in Hollywood film during its censorship under Will Hays and Joseph Breen--that is, as a screen of metaphorical displacements and double-meanings through which what was publicly forbidden could be privately expressed, understood, and enjoyed.

The figure of Orpheus, connoting both "musician" and "homosexual," and with whom Handel was often compared, is one salient example.

It is also significant that when a series of crackdowns on the burgeoning and increasingly open homosexual subculture of London began in the 1730s, Handel reworked many of these texts from which he had borrowed liberally over the years. In so doing, he sanitized them of their more obvious homosexual content.

In light of all this, and in the absence of even a shred of credible evidence to the contrary, we must ask the question on what basis--more to the point, in whose interests--can it be argued that Handel was anything other than ?

Though discomfiting to many, such questions are urgently political, made so not by any "homosexual agenda" but by the persistence of homophobia in our culture. More important, finally, than the question of Handel's sexual identity are the socio-cultural contexts and political struggles in which the composer's sexuality was meaningful--for Handel, for his biographers, and for us.

We must take these contexts into account if we are ever to escape the politically suspect myth of "timelessness" and properly appreciate both Handel and his magnificent work.

Male singers who were castrated before they reached puberty, castrati reached the height of their popularity in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; although not necessarily homosexual, they occupy a "queer space" in cultural history.

Classical music is an important component of Western culture to which glbt people have contributed significantly.

Opera, an eclectic synthesis of voice, drama, music, costume, visual arts and spectacle, has played an integral role in queer culture since its development in seventeenth century Venice.

Arcangelo Corelli, who was probably homosexual, was one of the seventeenth century's most widely admired composers and performers.

British director Sir Nicholas Hytner is acclaimed for his work on musicals and plays in London as well as New York, and also for directing films and operas.