Conservatives,Trumps Vs.LGBT Rights~To Fight We Need to know our History

In recent decades, LGBT people in the U.S. have gained unprecedented civil rights. We can marry our partners, serve openly in the military and fully participate in government civil service.

But for most of the 20th century, same-sex love dare not speak its name if you wanted to serve your country in almost any official capacity — LGBT people weren't welcome in the federal government or in the armed services unless we remained closeted about our lives.

A black and white photo of the journalist sitting next to the former president. Next Avenue, LGBTQ history, Washington d.c.

Joe Alsop with President Lyndon Johnson. The closeted newspaper columnist partook in homosexual escapades, Johnson once said with characteristic understatement, “in practically every capital of the world.”  |  Credit: LBJ Presidential Library

 

This policy reflected the prevailing attitudes of the times — being gay was either a sickness or a sin — or both. Still, generations of gays and lesbians continued to serve our country, risking livelihoods and professional reputations if outed.

In the new book "Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington," author James Kirchick meticulously documents the stories and scandals involving LGBT people in government service and politics from the Great Depression through the 1990s.

"It felt like I was putting together a multiple-season television show. I was coming up with overarching themes and plot lines."

"In illuminating the lives of these men and women, it is my hope that this book will help them attain the place they have long been denied yet belatedly deserve in the history of the great experiment that is America," writes Kirchick, a columnist for Tablet magazine and nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, in the book's introduction.

"Secret City" is organized by the presidential administration, covering episodes for every president, including the sex scandal targeting Sumner Welles, a diplomatic advisor to Franklin D. Roosevelt, the so-called Lavender Scare of the 1950s, the beginnings of LGBT progress during the Carter administration, and allegations of a "homosexual ring" surrounding Ronald Reagan.

Kirchick talked to Next Avenue about why the anti-gay purge endured, the conflicting feelings of most presidents about homosexuality, and whether an LGBT candidate has a shot at making it to the White House.

Next Avenue: "Secret City" took more than five years to write and research and ended up being more than twice as long as originally planned. What was it like to stitch together this under-the-radar history?

James Kirchick: It felt like I was putting together a multiple-season television show. I was coming up with overarching themes and plot lines. Characters come in and out, some are on a few pages and others like [FBI director] J. Edgar Hoover really looms over the book.

(Photo below next)

 

Similar to the Red Scare of the 1950s, the federal government wasted so many resources trying to keep LGBT people out of government. But the anti-gay push continued for decades. Can you explain the forces shaping the anti-gay attitudes?

The reason why the anti-gay panic goes on longer is that gay people don't really come out of the closet until later. [Pioneering gay rights activist] Frank Kameny doesn't start his campaign until the late 1950s. A few years later, he starts the Mattachine Society, and it never had more than a few hundred people at any one time. [The Stonewall uprising in 1969] is important and encourages more visibility for gay people. By 1975, you get the civil service commission lifting the ban on gay civil servants — that's like twenty years after the Red Scare ends. And gay people were denied security clearances until 1995.

Reading the book, it's clear that sex scandals of all stripes are a constant in button-down Washington. But it seemed like gay sex scandals generated even more shock value.

I think gay people in this era are defined by their sexual behavior. There's not an understanding of the humanity of gay people. These people are defined by the people they have sex with — their very existence is a scandal. That's why homosexuality was such a dangerous and instantly scandalous topic to the point that the term homosexuality isn't even used. Politicians are coming up with all these terms to describe it because it's such a taboo subject.

 

Given the determination of the government to prevent LGBT people from serving, why do you think they continued to try to find their places in government?

I think it's an amazing patriotism that gay people have. They're working for a government that doesn't want them and is actively persecuting them. It's a testament to these folks that they saw the better of their country than their county saw for themselves.

Even when there's progress, such as when the Carter administration convenes a meeting with gay activists, it's mixed. The White House advisor who organized it was herself closeted.

I think that's a recurring theme. World War II was a major moment in gay history in terms of forming a gay consciousness. All these people in rural areas for the first time come into contact with gay people. Then the Kinsey report comes out and puts a scientistic imprimatur that homosexuality is more widespread, followed by a nationwide panic and the Lavender Scare.

Two men sitting on patio chairs on a sandy beach. Next Avenue, LGBTQ history, Washington d.c.

Federal Bureau of Investigation director J. Edgar Hoover (right) and associate director Clyde Tolson (left) circa 1939  |  Credit: Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA

 

Then you have Stonewall in 1969 and gay liberation, followed by Harvey Milk and other gay activists on university campuses, and then the backlash in the form of Anita Bryant and the Save Our Children campaign. In the nineties, you have Ellen DeGeneres and all this cultural visibility, followed by the [proposed] federal marriage amendment and backlash during the Bush administration

Between 2010 and 2020, the number of self-identified people has doubled, explaining what we are seeing now in some states — the backlash about teaching about sexual orientation. We go through these waves but in general, the trend line is a positive one.

Throughout the book, you get a sense of some presidents and other leaders wanting to do the right thing by their LGBT employees but being constrained by their personal limitations or the era they lived in.

You look at FDR, the first president I write about. When his close aide is accused of propositioning porters on the train, his initial reaction was that he wasn't doing it on company time. But simultaneously, he's encouraging the outing of David Walsh, the senator from Massachusetts who's an adversary of his. There's not much principle here — it's all politics. Who's on my side and who's on the other side.

JFK's best friend was gay, and he has other gay male friends. JFK's perfectly comfortable around gay men, but it has no bearing on the policies of his administration.

With Reagan, the real fear was that he would be seen as being too friendly to gay people or perhaps being gay himself. His close advisor, Lyn Nofziger, says it in his memoir. You see this sense of distancing from anything that could be perceived as gay.

Two men wearing suits smiling inside the white house. Next Avenue, LGBTQ history, Washington d.c |  Credit: Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum
Terry Dolan, president of the National Conservative Political Action Committee. A 1987 Washington Post exposé about Dolan’s secret gay life and death from AIDS so enraged his older brother, President Reagan’s chief speechwriter, Tony, that he published a two-page advertisement in the Washington Times denouncing the Post and its editor, Ben Bradlee. "Homosexual intrigue” in the Post newsroom was so intense, the surviving Dolan brother wrote, that “poor Ben Bradlee has no one on whom he dares turn his back.” 

 

A real turning point came in the mid-90s when the Clinton administration lifted the ban on government security clearances for LGBT people, reversing a more than a 40-year-old policy from the Eisenhower administration. Why did you decide to end the book there?

I really felt the book is about the specter of homosexuality over Washington. It begins with World War II when homosexuality transforms from sin and medical condition into a national security threat and that threat ends in 1995. At that point, homosexuality is no longer officially legally a bar to public service for gay people. The military would not lift its gay ban until 2011, and gay history continued after 1995, but for the purposes of my book, it felt like 1995 was the time to end it.

There's a poignant line from activist and author David Mixner about being born three days apart from Bill Clinton but not being able to pursue the same dream of being president because he was gay. Do you think an LGBT candidate could be a major party nominee and even win the White House?

I do think [out Secretary of Transportation and 2020 presidential candidate] Pete Buttigieg could get the nomination, and I don't think his being gay is a bar to higher office. The criticism Buttigieg got for his homosexuality didn't come from homophobes on the right but from the queer left — that he wasn't gay enough, whatever that means.

I'm very optimistic about the future of gay people in politics. 

{Robert}

Robert DiGiacomo is a veteran Philadelphia, Pa.-based journalist who covers food and travel, arts and entertainment, and personal finance. He has written for The Washington Post, USA TODAY,  The Penn Gazette, and Fodor's

             Adam Gonzalez 

(3 yr graduation from Seminary)

               and 2 mothers:    

(Opinion on recent history acts) 

I think now that we had a President in which it only took him less than four years to bring out what was at the bottom of the barrel all along with the sediments and dirt every nation has and every human BEING. We all make mistakes and we all hurt the ones that are on our side even when we don't mean to.

But these sediments had been boiling after WW11, not sure why. But the parents of the 60-80s failed in the dept of checking out what their kids were learning in church and whether that included learning to hate a class of people. People are always talking about the school classroom forgetting that we learn as much if not more outside of the classroom.

Why there are people hating and don't know why but the top excuse is they are not like us. Not realizing that even twins don't think alike. But a lack of information or wrong information and defined by those who think are better than others because they are saved or because they themselves learn things in another way. 

The LGBT community in America and World wide needs to start getting involved in politics and the law. But at the same time build their institutions to protect and inform others be gays or not. Laws can be changed but just because we got the verdict in our favor there are no guarantees it won't be another cop down the road that will stop and lie to everyone to mark you as disgusting and not worthy of what they have. 

All it took for Trump was to put 3 people in there loyal to him because they would not otherwise get that cozy job for life. With 3 already there from other Republicans (Reagan)  and the Bush Family. 

Politics is for the crazy and fast-talking person. We need to have such a character working himself up ready for a Presidential Primary. I will hope just now for a man gay or not because this nation on this estate of craziness and power grab Republicans which we have allowed the left to go. Maybe now we know their promises are empty and they don't even believe in our system of government unless they are the government. We lost so much with a religious ex-druggie in the white house. Yet he lost the election but Ms. Sandra O'Connor gave him the presidency without having all the votes in Florida counted and that was ok for the Dems and Ind. Playing a good guy. That is fine but then change the system and kick out the electoral college. Make everyone responsible for their vote and make sure the law says you can't go on with uncounted votes. If we didn't have a Bush because he lost the first election and a Payaso with Illusions of grandeur we would be in a different place today without a Vice President too old for the presidency of today and without people on the Court that can swear they won't do something but 18 months later they are doing what they swore they won't do. Please don't doubt what they will do. If there this established popular law is reversed there is a same-sex marriage that will be next and I see that one more unpopular with Trump's justices and his people.

Please don't say you saw the rainbow flag at a Trump rally. It's usually carried by a straight person but when is a gay person, (there were many gay, well married now that voted for him), Tell me if there are not uninformed or selfish people that are gay. Also, something that has been established at least on my mind. Most injuries to gays have been closeted gays are very unhappy with their orientation and do not love themselves when the gays start coming out in them.. Since they won't punch themselves they go looking for someone that in their minds is gay.

            by:  Adam Gonzalez