He further maintains that neither scripture nor early Christian society demanded a negative response to same-sex relations. He stresses that there had been tolerance for homosexual acts in Greek, Roman, Hebrew, and early Christian societies. In it Boswell challenges an idea that had become a commonplace: that Christianity had always considered homosexual acts morally wrong and that it had a longstanding tradition of homophobic practices. His groundbreaking work Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century (1980) won the National Book Award for History in 1981. He died of an AIDS-related illness in 1994. In 1987 he was instrumental in creating the Lesbian and Gay Studies Center at Yale. A popular teacher and lecturer, Boswell frequently spoke on issues concerning gay rights.

Whitney Griswold Professor of History in 1990. He became full professor in 1982 and was named the A. from Harvard in 1975, he joined the Yale history department as an assistant professor. Born in 1947 in Boston, he attended the College of William and Mary, and after earning his Ph.D. John Boswell was perhaps one of the most controversial and influential figures in the fields of the history of sexuality, religious studies, and medieval history in the late twentieth century.

Boswell homosexuality