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<TITLE>A CELEBRATION for OSCAR</TITLE>
<META NAME="DESCRIPTION" CONTENT="NAMBLA's goal is to end the oppression of men and boyswho have mutually consensual relationships. Our membership is open to everyone sympathetic to man/boy love in particular and sexual freedom in general.">
<META NAME="KEYWORDS" CONTENT="OSCAR WILDE, DE PROFUNDIS, NAMBLA, NORTH AMERICAN MAN/BOY LOVE ASSOCIATION, MAN/BOY LOVE, BOYS, BOYS SPEAK OUT ON MAN/BOY LOVE, WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT NAMBLA AND MAN/BOY LOVE, POEMS OF LOVE AND LIBERATION, NAMBLA BULLETIN, NAMBLA TOPICS, NAMBLA JOURNAL, AGEISM, YOUTH, GAY YOUTH, INTERNATIONAL LESBIAN AND GAY ASSOCIATION, ILGA, INTERNATIONAL GAY AND LESBIAN YOUTH ORGANIZATION, DAVID THORSTAD, MICHAEL C. BAURMANN, ALLEN GINSBERG, HARRY HAY, JIM KEPNER, JOHN PRESTON, WALT WHITMAN, CAMILLE PAGLIA, JANE RULE, THE AGE TABOO, PAT CALIFIA">
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<CENTER><P><B><I><FONT COLOR="#0000FF"><FONT SIZE=+3>A CELEBRATION FOR
OSCAR </FONT></FONT></I></B></P></CENTER>
<P><FONT SIZE=+1>More than a century after his release from prison, England
today is celebrating its first public memorial to Oscar Wilde. Placed in
Adelaide Street, near London's Trafalgar Square, the bronze monument was
filmmaker Derek Jarman's idea. </FONT></P>
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<P><FONT COLOR="#0000A0"><FONT SIZE=-2>Wilde and Douglas, 1893</FONT></FONT></P>
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<TD><FONT SIZE=+1>Was Wilde gay? You bet. Was he a boy-lover? Damned right.
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<P><FONT SIZE=+1>At the height of late-Victorian British Empire, Wilde's
brilliant writing challenged smugness and prejudice, and took on the establishment
with amazing wit. However, his most unpardonable transgression was to be
seen in public with rude boys, violating the behavioral class norms of
his day. Society got its revenge. </FONT></P>
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<P><FONT SIZE=+1>After serving his sentence, Wilde left England for a bitter
exile in Europe - never to return. He said, &quot;All trials are trials
for one's life, just as all sentences are sentences of death; and three
times have I been tried. ... The one disgraceful, unpardonable, and to
all time contemptible action of my life was to allow myself to appeal to
society for help and protection.&quot; </FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=+1>Wilde wrote that &quot;Society, as we have constituted
it, will have no place for me, has none to offer; but Nature, whose sweet
rains fall on unjust and just alike, will have clefts in the rocks where
I may hide, and secret valleys in whose silence I may weep undisturbed.
She will hang the night with stars so that I may walk abroad in the darkness
without stumbling, and send the wind over my footprints so that none may
track me to my hurt: she will cleanse me in great waters, and with bitter
herbs make me whole.&quot; - <I>De Produndis </I></FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=+1>A century after he was made a scapegoat, England is celebrating
Wilde's life. Chris Smith comments, &quot;It's due to Oscar Wilde in many
ways that we today can celebrate a society that generally appreciates diversity
and the richness of diversity in our community.&quot; </FONT></P>
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<P><FONT COLOR="#0000FF"><B>Prosecutor</B>:</FONT> <I>What is <FONT COLOR="#0000FF">&quot;the
love that dare not speak its name&quot;</FONT>?</I></P>
<P><FONT COLOR="#0000FF"><B>Wilde</B>:</FONT> <B><I>&quot;The Love that
dare not speak its name&quot; in this century is such a great affection
of an elder for a younger man as there was between David and Jonathan,
such as Plato made the very basis of his philosophy, and such as you find
in the sonnets of Michelangelo and Shakespeare. It is that deep, spiritual
affection that is as pure as it is perfect. It dictates and pervades great
works of art like those of Shakespeare and Michelangelo, and those two
letters of mine, such as they are. It is in this century misunderstood,
so much misunderstood that it may be described as the &quot;Love that dare
not speak its name,&quot; and on account of it I am placed where I am now.
It is beautiful, it is fine, it is the noblest form of affection. There
is nothing unnatural about it. It is intellectual, and it repeatedly exists
between an elder and a younger man, when the elder man has intellect, and
the younger man has all the joy, hope and glamour of life before him. That
it should be so, the world does not understand. The world mocks at it and
sometimes puts one in the pillory for it.&quot;</I></B></P>
<P><I>[The speech caused a loud burst of applause to erupt from the gallery
of the courtroom.]</I></P>
<P>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<FONT SIZE=+1><B><FONT COLOR="#0000FF">~
Oscar Wilde, </FONT></B><FONT COLOR="#804040">playwright</FONT></FONT></P>
</UL>
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<P>The story of Oscar Wilde can be found in an excellent small book, <B><I>The
Early Homosexual Rights Movement (1864-1935)</I></B>, by John Lauritsen
and David Thorstad, published by Times Change Press, New York.</P>
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<P><A HREF="index.htm"><IMG SRC="m0p7nau7.gif" BORDER=0 HEIGHT=58 WIDTH=58></A>Copyright
&copy; NAMBLA, 1999. All rights reserved.</P>
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