Love In Ancient Times.

Love was tolerated between men even in the Middle Ages. People were often put to death for it. Actually before the Buggery Act of 1533 in England, it was only an Ecclesiastical offense. Noble and rich people still got away with it though all the time. Shakespeare even wrote a love sonnet, sonnet 144, about how he got a STD from another man.

Then in 1885, again in the UK, the Gross Indecency Act was passed. You no longer had to prove penetration had occurred. Simply loving another man in any way was illegal. And that is when western culture really became homophobic for the first time I think.