Origins of the derogatory word “faggot”
During the Spanish Inquisition, when hundreds of women were being burned at the stake for their supposed consorting with the Devil, sadistic townspeople would “kill two birds with one stone”, as they thought of it, and forcibly throw anyone suspected of being a homosexual on to the pyre as well. ‘Faggot’ was a term meaning a small bundle of wood, usually used for starting a fireplace fire (England still uses it in that sense, and also as slang for cigarettes). It was used as a way of saying, “You’re nothing, you’re just twigs on an already burning fire to us.”
(via bradicalmang)
