My Year With Proust - Day 309

. . . though they have no scruple about that, than to excusing themselves, and seeking out (as a doctor seeks out cases of appendicitis) cases of inversion in history, taking pleasure in recalling that Socrates was one of themselves, as the Jews claim that Jesus was one of them, without reflecting that there were no abnormal people when homosexuality was the norm, no anti-Christians before Christ, that the opprobrium alone makes the crime because it has allowed to survive only those who remained obdurate to every warning, to every example, to every punishment, by virtue of an innate disposition so peculiar that it is more repugnant to other men (even though it may be accompanied by high moral qualities) than certain other vices which exclude those qualities, such as theft, cruelty, breach of faith, vices better understood and so more readily excused by the generality of men; forming a freemasonry far more extensive, more effective and less suspected than that of the Lodges, for it rests upon an identity of tastes, needs, habits, dangers, apprenticeships, knowledge, traffic, vocabulary, and one in which even members who do not wish to know one another recognise one another immediately by natural or conventional, involuntary or deliberate signs which indicate one of his kind . . .

Marcel Proust, Cities of the Plain, pp. 639-640

Proust continues to ruminate at length on the question of homosexuality and the role that homosexuals play in society.  He draws the comparison to two groups, Jews and homosexuals, who, in his age, had to play a delicate balancing act of being in society, and yet being essentially invisible in society.  As part of the analogy he proposes that both groups sought out "cases of inversion in history," in the case of homosexuals "recalling that Socrates was one of them" while "the Jews claim that Jesus was one of them."  Proust then makes the point, seemingly accusatory, that that groups make these claims "without reflecting that there were no abnormal people when homosexuality was the norm, no anti-Christians before Christ."  But see, here's the thing, I think this is actually where Proust shows his sympathy for both Jews and homosexuals, and displays the humanity and sympathy that I associate with him.  He discusses their high moral qualities, as compared to the laundry list of bad qualities that people readily accept while persecuting both groups.  I don't think you even need to go the lengths of discussing Proust's own sexuality here.  I would propose that Proust, maybe because of his lifelong poor health - or the lonely life of driven artist - would have felt a natural brotherhood for two other misunderstood and shunned groups.