User:Nield/Jacob Anton Schorer

Work in Progress
I'm still working on this article. Besides some things about which I'm not quite sure how to translate them properly (feel free to edit, see bold and italic statements in the text), the entire tone of the article seems much too positive. This is because it is a translation of the Dutch wikipedia article, which has the same problem (see sources). For example the part about the distributing of tens of thousands annual reports. According to this page it generally wasn't really appreciated, and there even was talk about outlawing reports like the ones he was sending. Anyway, when I have some more time I'll try to improve this article. nield 15:55, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Article
Jacob Anton Schorer (Heinkenszand, The Netherlands, 1 march 1866 - Harderwijk, 18 august 1957) was a Dutch lawyer, best known for his work for gay emancipation.

Jacob Schorer was born into a prominent Zeelandish family. His father, Eduard Pieter Schorer (1837-1909) was vice president of the court of justice in Middelburg. After the family of E.P. Schorer was ennobled Jacob Schorer carried the title jonkheer. He studied law in Leiden, got his doctorate in 1897 en worked as lawyer and substitute sub-district court judge in Middelburg.


 * I think that the appropriate translations for 'vice president' and 'Gerechtshof' will depend on the particular terminology used for the court in Middelbert Burnley 01:24, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

In early 1903 his carrier ended suddenly, because of a criminal investigation in to possible sexual contacts with an underage boy. Although the investigation didn't find any criminal offenses, his reputation was damaged. He asked for and was granted an honorary discharge.

After that, he left for Berlin where he worked as a representative for an insurance company to support himself. He studied with Magnus Hirschfeld and became one of his employees in the Wissenschaftlich-humanitäres Komitee (WhK) that was dedicated to equals rights for homosexuals. In 1910 he returned to The Netherlands.

In 1911 article 248bis was introduced in the Dutch Wetboek van Strafrecht (the main code for Dutch criminal law), which made sexual contact with someone of the same sex between 16 and 21 years old punishable by up to one year imprisonment, while the age of consent for heterosexuals was 16 years. Schorer dedicated himself to getting the article removed. In 1912 he started a Dutch chapter of the WhK, that was called "Nederlandsch Wetenschappelijk Humanitair Komitee" (NWHK) (Dutch Scientific Humanitarian Committee), although he got little support and cooperation. The long and never ending ('nimmer aflatende strijd' - can that be said? The 248bis article was removed after all) battle against the injustice in the Dutch criminal law, against the blackmail that followed from the law, which made innumerable victims, and against the general incomprehension and prejudice, was practically exclusively the work of Schorer himself.

Alone, he conducted the correspondence and wrote the annual reports, of which he distributed tens of thousands. He also built an extensive library, which he made available to researchers and others looking for information. Courageously and without pseudonym he paved the way for the emancipation movement for Dutch gays (or is 'of Dutch gays'?)- Also, that entire sentence doesn't sound NPOV to me. On 10 may 1940 (the date of the German invasion of The Netherlands) he immediately destroyed the member administration and archive of the NWHK. This was not in vain, because as early as June of 1940 the Germans raided his apartment. His valuable library was seized (or is 'impounded' better here?). It was never recovered.

Schorer died on 18 August 1957 in Hardewijk, exactly 10 years before the founding of the Schorerstichting.

Some sources (to-be?) used

 * http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Anton_Schorer (Dutch)
 * http://www.inghist.nl/Onderzoek/Projecten/BWN/lemmata/bwn6/schorer (Dutch)
 * http://www.schorer.nl/content.asp?ID=74 (Dutch - the Dutch wikipedia article appears based on this one... which explains why it's so positive: they're describing the person they named themselves after)
 * http://andrejkoymasky.com/liv/fam/bios2/scho4.html

Proposed categories


Jacob Anton Schorer