Connect with us

Remembering “The Homosexuals”

Published

on

Editor’s note: This guest post by Scott Wooledge was originally published at Daily Kos and is published here with his permission. Scott Wooledge writes at the Daily Kos under the handle Clarknt67.

44 years ago this week, March 7, 1967, CBS News aired a Special Report hosted by Mike Wallace titled simply, “The Homosexuals.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=-AXAOT_swIE%3Ffs%3D1%26hl%3Den_US

Wallace begins quoting a 1967 CBS-commissioned opinion poll that showed “most Americans are repelled by the mere notion of homosexuality” and “two out of three look upon homosexuals with disgust, discomfort or fear. One out of ten says hatred.” He goes on to say:

The majority of Americans favor legal punishment even for homosexual acts performed in private between consenting adults. The homosexual, bitterly aware of his rejection, responds by going underground, they frequent their own clubs, bars and coffee houses where they can act out in the fashion that they want to.

Wayne Besen of Truth Wins Out calls this “the single most destructive hour of antigay propaganda in our nation’s history.”

It is definitely painful but important look into a bygone era, but one that is not so very far in our past (I was, myself, merely 21 days away from coming into this world).

Dave White took a fresh look at this documentary in an article for The Advocate last year. Describing his review process, he says:

I took notes. And when I was done my pad of paper was a laundry list of every horrible thing you’ve ever heard about the gays: smothering mothers, mental illness, animalistic sexual gratification, society’s repulsion, promiscuity, recruitment, etc.

Some quotes, some from Wallace, some from clergy and other “experts” on the subject:

“They frequent their own bars … where they can act out…”

“The average homosexual isn’t capable of love.”

“Homosexuality is, in fact, a mental illness.”

“The church has a great deal of sympathy for those who are handicapped in this way.”

“[Being a homosexual] automatically rules out that [the man in question] will remain happy.”

But what I find interesting is not so much the archaic, offensive language but the insight into how the law played into a culture of oppression. Wallace reminds us in 1967, Illinois was the only state that did not outlaw homosexual acts. (Most sodomy laws would live on until the Supreme Court struck them down in 6-3 ruling in Lawrence v. Texas in 2003.)

We’re now living in a time when finally the paradigm is shifting. But 1967, it was unquestioned that it was the appropriate place of government to manage, control, and contain the homosexuals and protect good society from them. In the clip below you will hear a police chief explain the importance of maintaining the “moral aptness here in the community” (which, at that time, would mean endless sting arrests, bar raids, in some places, even home invasions.) The government, top to bottom, was an enthusiastic participant and propagator of LGBT oppression.

But it seems, gratefully, that ship is turning around. But also it seems too that movement may have confused some people. I see people pointing to landmarks, like the passage of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in 1993 or Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, as somehow a marker of the beginning of the LGBT struggle for equality.

In fact, those moments in time only serve to illustrate that the LGBT community’s call for equality became too strident, too effective, too threatening and hence, legislative roadblocks had to be constructed to slow or stop it.

Below, I’ve share a six minute clip I found particularly heartbreaking and disturbing. The intro starts off, with seeming benevolent condescension, then takes a turn:

Most homosexuals do not consider themselves ill, and they are able to live with their condition fairly comfortably.

On the other hand, there are those whose compulsive behavior becomes a problem for the police. This is such an example.

Wallace then accompanies the police on a ride along where a 19-year old serviceman is picked up for trolling for sex in a public park bathroom. He is heard, but not shown, pleading and begging to deaf ears that his life will be over. And he’s probably right.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Pa7OwUOur1M%3Ffs%3D1%26hl%3Den_US

What might have become of this young man after his arrest? Well, his name and picture would probably have been run in the local paper. He was a servicemember, so it was likely the police contacted his CO and he was dishonorably discharged.

But he was only 19, he might still be saved. His parents might have committed him to an asylum, for reparative therapy, that might have included electroshock, chemical or actual castration, and yes, even lobotomies.

But why would someone risk such consequences? There were no other options, of course. It was another time, there was no Craigslist, Grindr, or Facebook.

But much more significantly, municipalities across the country gave not a second thought to violating LGBT Americans’ First Amendment right to free association. Gay bars were illegal in much of the country. Even hosting a gathering of “known homosexuals” in the privacy of your home was often an arrestable offense. We see the circuitous nature of the oppression, where gay people are granted no space to exist in private, and are declared a public menace, which becomes a convenient excuse to hunt them down in private… And round and round we go.

In the clip, the police chief brags of the 3,000 arrests he’s made, and warns the problem is growing:

I’m concerned with the moral aptness here in the community and I’m opposed as a matter of principle to making anything which is improper or immoral conspicuous and by this conspicuousness making it easy for a person to engage in this kind of activity.

I can’t help thinking how similar these concerns of “conspicuousness” are like many current objections to marriage equality, which conservatives fear it will “make it easier for people to engage in this kind of activity.” We must keep them “less conspicuous” for the children! Or objections to repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” confirmed it was best for everyone if gay people were kept as inconspicuous as possible (for the sake of “troop morale.”)

The police chief adds in a rueful tone:

The law is itself is much that, really, there isn’t a great deal we can do about those things that occur in private places.

A morality police’s lament: they can’t just knock down the doors of our bedrooms and put an end to our depravity once and for all. Thankfully, the Supreme Court definitively closed the door on that option in 2003.

To clarify, gay establishments existed, but they were most often clandestine operations. To even enter one was to risk arrest. Forbidding them opened the door to exploitation. They usually operated only by the grace of pay-offs to both police and the Mafia. Gays were subjected to an endless vicious cycle of exploitation from the law and the lawless alike. This pressure-cooker of corruption was, in part, what fed the critical mass that culminated in the famous Stonewall Riots of 1969.

By the 1980s the worst of this police harassment was a thing of the past. Although not entirely, the raids continue to this day, under dubious pretext from Texas to Atlanta to New York City. And the arrival of the AIDS crisis served as a bitter reminder we were still a disposable population, unworthy of attention or care.

After the special aired, Jack Nichols of the of the nascent LGBT rights organization, the Mattachine Society (founded in 1955) shared this anecdote of his encounter with Wallace:

[A]fter we finished and the camera was turned off, Mike Wallace sat down with me and talked for about half an hour. He said, “You know, you answered all of my questions capably, but I have a feeling that you don’t really believe that homosexuality is as acceptable as you make it sound.” I asked him why he would say that. “Because,” he said, “in your heart I think you know it’s wrong.” It was infuriating. I told him I thought being gay was just fine, but that in his heart he thought it was wrong.

From Wikipedia, (a very interesting read):

For his part, anchor Mike Wallace came to regret his participation in the episode. “I should have known better,” he said in 1992.

Speaking in 1996, Wallace stated, “That is — God help us — what our understanding was of the homosexual lifestyle a mere twenty-five years ago because nobody was out of the closet and because that’s what we heard from doctors — that’s what Socarides told us, it was a matter of shame.”

The Socarides he references would be Charles Socarides, a prominent Columbia University psychiatrist. He is featured in the documentary and was very active at the time, fighting the movement to remove homosexuality from the DSM as a mental illness. He also penned a book Homosexuality: A Freedom Too Far (a collection of anti-gay nonsense pseudo-science, still popular with anti-gay hate groups like Family Research Council). Sort of an East coast, elite Anita Bryant.

Today’s youth may associate the name Socarides with his son, Richard, who currently serves as President of Equality Matters and has served as LGBT liaison to the Clinton Administration, and has long been an outspoken voice for the LGBT equality movement.

Clearly we’ve come a long way, apparently you can now endure a sting operation like the serviceman’s and not only avoid jail and commitment but keep your Senate seat.

And LGBT images in the media aren’t this awful, by any means. But they still need a lot of work, 44 years later. It was less than a year ago, CNN’s Kyra Phillips wanted to address the issue of “Can homosexuality be cured?” “NO!” is already a long-held consensus opinion of the following leading professional organizations:

  • The American Psychiatric Association
  • The American Psychological Association
  • The American Psychoanalytical Association
  • The American Academy Of Pediatrics
  • The National Association of Social Workers

And these organizations would object to the question frame of “cure.” They think it’s definitely not an illness, and there’s no sound evidence orientation can be changed.

But apparently, those scientists and respected professionals don’t know what they’re talking about. No, Ms. Phillips of CNN—the one network committed to “Moving Truth Forward”—looked far and wide, until she found a discredited former-psychologist under a rock who would come on the air and tell her what she wanted to hear: “Yes.” That man was Richard Cohen. If his name is familiar you may remember his meltdown on the Rachel Maddow Show (when he had the misfortune of encountering a real journalist).

https://youtube.com/watch?v=TLlVDSfbzpE%3Ffs%3D1%26hl%3Den_US

Among the endorsers of Richard Cohen’s book, Coming out Straight?, Dr. Laura C. Schlessinger and Charles Socarides, who wrote before his death in 2005:

“This book is a testament to a heroic and successful struggle to regain one’s heterosexual destiny. It gives hope to many.”

–Charles W. Socarides, M.D., Author,

Homosexuality: A Freedom Too Far

How far we’ve come. How far we still have to go to marginalizing the voices of hate and ignorance that are featured in our media as credible sources.

The full hour video may be viewed via this link.


FYI: Wallace makes not a single reference to lesbians in the special. A very telling non-commentary comment on attitudes toward women’s sexuality, indeed.

Continue Reading
Click to comment
 
 

Enjoy this piece?

… then let us make a small request. The New Civil Rights Movement depends on readers like you to meet our ongoing expenses and continue producing quality progressive journalism. Three Silicon Valley giants consume 70 percent of all online advertising dollars, so we need your help to continue doing what we do.

NCRM is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. From unflinching coverage of religious extremism, to spotlighting efforts to roll back our rights, NCRM continues to speak truth to power. America needs independent voices like NCRM to be sure no one is forgotten.

Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Help ensure NCRM remains independent long into the future. Support progressive journalism with a one-time contribution to NCRM, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click here to donate by check.

OPINION

‘Have to Get Back to Law and Order’: Trump Declares at NYPD Officer’s Wake

Published

on

Donald Trump attended the wake of the slain New York City police officer who was shot and killed while conducting a traffic stop this week. The four-times indicted ex-president demanded America “get back to law and order,” barely days after a New York judge imposed a gag order in the case where the presumptive Republican presidential nominee faces 34 felony counts for “falsifying New York business records in order to conceal damaging information and unlawful activity from American voters before and after the 2016 election,” according to the New York District Attorney.

That damaging information included hush money payments to several women including an adult film actress.

“We have to stop it,” Trump said Thursday, speaking before the cameras about crime as he stood under an umbrella in front of police officers. “We have to stop, we have to get back to law and order. We have to do a lot of things differently because this is not working. This is happening too often.”

“Police are the greatest people we have. There’s nothing and there’s nobody like them. And this should never happen,” Trump said as he lamented how repeat offenders “don’t learn because they don’t respect.”

READ MORE: Trump Campaign Says It Will Deploy ‘Soldiers’ to Polling Places

“We’ve got to toughen it up. We’ve got to strengthen it up. It should never be allowed things like they shouldn’t take place and to take place so often,” said Trump, who is out on bail and currently faces 88 felony charges after three were dropped.

The Trump campaign announced that the ex-president had been invited to attend the wake.

“President Trump is moved by the invitation to join NYPD Officer Jonathan Diller’s family and colleagues as they deal with his senseless and tragic death,” Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said, according to The Daily Beast.

The Associated Press added that “Trump has deplored crime in heavily Democratic cities, called for shoplifters to be shot immediately and wants to immunize police officers from lawsuits for potential misconduct. But he’s also demonized local prosecutors, the FBI and the Department of Justice over the criminal prosecutions he faces and the investigation while he was president into his first campaign’s interactions with Russia.”

“He has also embraced those imprisoned for their roles on the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, when a mob of his angry supporters overran police lines and Capitol and local police officers were attacked and beaten.”

Earlier on Thursday NBC News reported on Trump’s mischaracterizations of crime.

“Surging crime levels, out-of-control Democratic cities and ‘migrant crime,'” the network noted. “Former President Donald Trump regularly cites all three at his campaign rallies, in news releases and on Truth Social, often saying President Joe Biden and Democrats are to blame.”

READ MORE: ‘Hunger Games at NBC News’: New McDaniel Revelations Have ‘Enraged’ Staffers, Report Says

“But the crime picture Trump paints contrasts sharply with years of police and government data at both the local and national levels,” NBC added. “FBI statistics released this year suggested a steep drop in crime across the country last year. It’s a similar story across major cities, with violent crime down year over year in Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C.”

Watch Trump’s remarks below or at this link.

Continue Reading

OPINION

‘Hunger Games at NBC News’: New McDaniel Revelations Have ‘Enraged’ Staffers, Report Says

Published

on

The backlash from NBC News’ hiring of Ronna McDaniel is not over. New reporting from Puck, CNN, and The Washington Post reveals the considerable efforts from top NBC and MSNBC brass to recruit, hire, and support the former RNC chair who promoted false election claims, was allegedly involved in helping Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, and refused to say Joe Biden had been elected fairly.

Staffers at NBC News and MSNBC were outraged at McDaniel’s hiring, but new details about behind-the-scenes efforts reportedly have increased that outrage.

Some critics are either calling for resignations of NBC News and MSNBC  leadership, or questioning how long they can ride out the mess.

“What is Brian Roberts going to do?” CNN‘s Oliver Darcy asks. “The Comcast boss is watching an unceasing five-alarm fire rage at 30 Rock, scarring the reputation of NBC News and threatening to consume multiple parts of the Cesar Conde-run NBC Universal News Group.”

“Conde has lost control of his organization, prompting industry insiders to wonder how he continues to remain in his role as chairman of the NBC News Group. In the words of one veteran media executive I spoke to Wednesday, ‘It’s inconceivable that he should,'” Darcy writes, saying Conde’s actions and those of his top executives have “hosed gasoline” on the scandal.

READ MORE: Lawmaker Slammed for Claiming College Basketball Players Were Actually ‘Illegal Invaders’

That scandal involves these revelations from Puck’s Dylan Byers, who reports, “bringing McDaniel to 30 Rock had been part of a nearly two-month-long effort that was spearheaded by Budoff Brown and her boss, NBC News President Rebecca Blumenstein, with buy-in from Conde and his deputies at both NBC News and MSNBC.”

“Rashida Jones,” he adds, “the president of MSNBC, was very interested in having McDaniel appear as a contributor on her network, as well.”

But this bombshell has drawn a good deal of attention. Noting how Chuck Todd led off the very public pushback against the hiring of McDaniel, Byers reports, “On Sunday, Budoff Brown reached out to McDaniel’s aide and former chief of staff at the R.N.C., Richard Walters, to see if there were any friends or colleagues who could speak up on her behalf.”

“The two sides also discussed having these folks call attention to what they saw as a double standard—after all, this was the same network that was turning Psaki, a former Biden White House Press Secretary, into a Maddow-adjacent prime time star. Walters later assured Budoff Brown that they’d been able to advance conservative pushback on social media against Todd, specifically, and that this might give NBC News some cover, for which Budoff Brown thanked him.”

CNN, pointing to those details, adds, “staffers inside NBC News are enraged at the fact an executive would have engaged in such behavior.”

Former Chicago Tribune editor Mark Jacobs, who now writes about politics and the media, called for the firing of Jones, Blumenstein, and Budoff Brown.

Other critics are expressing concerns on multiple fronts.

READ MORE: Ronna McDaniel Is Just a ‘Normal’ Person Who ‘Never Denied the Election’ Says Hugh Hewitt

“It’s like the hunger games at @NBCNews. Every day new, horrible stories of journalism & corporate malpractice. Every single one of these managers must go,” observed Jennifer Schulze, a media critic who was a Chicago Sun-Times executive producer, WGN news director, and adjunct college professor of journalism.

She also highlights a Washington Post report that ropes NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt into the mess.

“Every @NBCNews exec who thought hiring a reputed liar & phony elector co-[conspirator] needs to resign or be fired,” Schulze says.

“The @NBCNews managers who recruited & signed an election denier should be out the door, too,” she adds. “Not only was it downright offensive to hire Ronna, it was journalism AND corporate malpractice.”

Pointing to his newsletter, former Obama senior advisor Dan Pfeiffer writes, “NBC’s ill-fated decision to hire Ronna McDaniel is a story of a media outlet unwilling to accept the ways Trump changed politics, but it’s also one of the best arguments for Dems need to build our media ecosystem ASAP.”

READ MORE: Comer Refuses to Investigate Trump Family Member Over ‘Influence Peddling’ Allegation

He calls McDaniel’s hiring “evidence” the media has “yet to accept the reality that this is not a normal election between a Republican and a Democrat.” And adds, “An [industry] that prizes objectivity above all else, is incapable of accurately covering an election where one candidate is a normal politician and the other is an insurrectionist. Many in the media would rather stumble into autocracy than take a side.”

Veteran journalist and Sirius XM host Michelangelo Signorile observes, “We couldn’t have asked for a better situation to shine a bright light on the corruption of the corporate media—and its impulse to legitimize MAGA extremism and lawbreakers for profit—than NBC’s hiring former RNC chair, election denier, and Trump enabler Ronna McDaniel.”

And he warns, “The forces that made the coup-plotting former RNC chair a paid contributor are still shaping news and information about this pivotal election.”

 

Continue Reading

News

Lawmaker Slammed for Claiming College Basketball Players Were Actually ‘Illegal Invaders’

Published

on

Michigan MAGA Republican state Rep. Matt Maddock is under fire after claiming three buses were “loaded up with illegal invaders.” The buses, according to multiple reports, were actually loaded with the Gonzaga University basketball team arriving for March Madness.

“Happening right now. Three busses just loaded up with illegal invaders at Detroit Metro. Anyone have any idea where they’re headed with their police escort?” Rep. Maddock wrote on social media Wednesday evening, tagging far-right former U.S. Congressman Pete Hoekstra, who served as U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands under Donald Trump and is now the state’s Republican Party chair.

Informed of his error on social media, Rep. Maddock doubled down, and attacked.

READ MORE: Ronna McDaniel Is Just a ‘Normal’ Person Who ‘Never Denied the Election’ Says Hugh Hewitt

“Probably teams for the NCAA Mens Sweet 16 playing at LCA on Friday and Sunday,” a user on X wrote.

“Sure kommie. Good talking point,” Maddock quickly shot back.

ABC affiliate WXYZ executive producer Maxwell White, responding to the Maddock’s original post wrote: “Just to be clear, this was the Gonzaga basketball team. Photos show Gonzaga getting on an Allegiant plane to Detroit for the Sweet 16, and Flight Radar shows a plane from GEG to DTW landed at 7:25 p.m., around the time this photo was posted.”

“This is a wild tweet,” White added, before adding more evidence.

Hoekstra, who was accused of using racism and xenophobia to win his campaign for a U.S. Senate seat (he lost), did not respond directly to Maddock but did repost the apparently false claim.

Michigan State Senate Democratic Majority Whip Mallory McMorrow denounced Maddock’s claim as “dangerous.”

Maddock’s remark also made the national stage when U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell responded.

READ MORE: Trump Campaign Says It Will Deploy ‘Soldiers’ to Polling Places

“Hey Einstein,” the California Democrat wrote, “your state is hosting the Sweet 16. Could it be a team bus? If it is, will you resign for your spectacular stupidity?”

In 2021 The Washington Post reported, “Michigan state Rep. Matt Maddock and his wife, Michigan Republican Party co-chair Meshawn Maddock, have repeatedly been called out by fact-checking journalists for promoting baseless claims of widespread voter fraud and falsely suggesting that covid-19 is comparable to the flu.”

See the social media posts above 0r at this link.

 

Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © 2020 AlterNet Media.