In various ways, Sixtus IV, Julius II, Leo X, and Julius III contributed to the strength of the Catholic Church in difficult periods of its history. Their achievements belie the efforts of Benedict XVI and John Paul II to characterize those who engage in homosexual acts as a danger to the stability of the Church and of society as a whole.

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A review of the history of the Church suggests that the demonization of homosexuality was not a primary concern of the papacy in previous centuries. Indeed, at least a few popes displayed notable tolerance of homosexuality, which challenges the harsh attitudes of the current papacy.

In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the Inquisitions of Aragon and Portugal prosecuted almost 1500 trials for sodomy of various kinds.

The members of the Knights Templar, a military order that had grown powerful in international finance and politics, were accused of heresy and sodomy when the organization was subjected to persecution in the fourteenth century.

Historically, the Roman Catholic Church may be the institution most responsible for the suffering of individuals involved in same-sex sexual relationships.

Lesbian and gay couples have been fighting for the freedom to marry since the dawn of the modern glbtq struggle for equality; despite some success abroad, progress toward same-sex marriage in the United States has been slow.

First used to refer only to anal intercourse, sodomy was progressively defined by the Church Fathers, and many later lawmakers, to include all sexual acts that could not result in procreation.

Sodomy laws, which provided the legal basis for police harassment of sexual minorities, were conclusively overturned by the United States Supreme Court in 2003, after more than half a century of efforts at reform.

Scipione Caffarelli Borghese, a seventeenth-century Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, was a bold and influential patron and collector of the visual arts.

John Boswell was one of the late twentieth century's most influential historians of homosexuality and author of one of the first book-length histories on the subject.

Renowned for his linear finesse and richly colored, meticulous paintings, Florentine artist Sandro Botticelli produced profound religious works, astute portraits, and poetic adaptations of classical mythology, all of which encourage a suggestively queer response.

The most original painter of early seventeenth-century Europe, Caravaggio imbues his art with homoeroticism.

Enigmatic monarch and enthusiastic patron of the arts, Christina of Sweden shocked Europeans by her aversion to marriage, her "mannish" ways, and her love for women, as well as by the abdication of her throne at the age of twenty-seven.

The most famous artist who ever lived, Michelangelo left an enormous legacy in sculpture, painting, drawing, architecture, and poetry; while the artist's sexual behavior cannot be documented, the homoerotic character of his drawings, letters, and poetry is unmistakable.

The story of Pope Joan, who was said to have lived in the ninth century and was thought to have been a woman who lived as a man in order to rise in the Church hierarchy to become Pope John VIII, captured the imaginations of Europeans for hundreds of years.