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157-416: The Lavender Scare normalized persecution of homosexuals through bureaucratic institutionalization of homophobia. Former U.S. Senator Alan K. Simpson wrote: "The so-called ' Red Scare ' has been the main focus of most historians of that period of time. A lesser-known element and one that harmed far more people was the witch-hunt McCarthy and others conducted against homosexuals." The term for this persecution

314-590: A Freedom of Information Act request. As of September 1981, the Navy claimed it was still unable to fulfill a request for the Report's supporting documentation. Shibusawa states that the Lavender Scare's logic was circular: homophobia supposedly made gays vulnerable and potential victims of blackmail, but the era's policies of increasing homophobia theoretically made gays even more vulnerable to blackmail. Reducing

471-494: A mental disorder , gay men and lesbians were considered susceptible to blackmail, thus constituting a security risk. U.S. government officials assumed that communists would blackmail homosexual employees of the federal government to provide them classified information rather than risk exposure. The 1957 Crittenden Report of the United States Navy Board of Inquiry concluded that there was "no sound basis for

628-478: A "moral sex panic" that dates back to the Great Depression) occurred in a context of "perceived shifts in gender relations, race relations, the ongoing dislocations of late capitalism, continuing urbanisation, economic and foreign crises, post-war adjustment, and the entrenchment of a consumer society and culture allegedly dominated by women." Despite this, exclusion of gays from the civil service, on

785-738: A Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from California , and the United States Secretary of Transportation in the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush . Mineta and Simpson served together in Congress, and on the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution , and remained close friends. Simpson has an older brother, Pete Simpson of Cody, a historian and

942-549: A ban of late-term abortions which did not include an exception for physical health, only for life-threatening conditions, in 1995 and 1996. However he opposed federal funding for abortions and supported the Hyde Amendment . He was also the co-sponsor of a bill regulating immigration. Simpson voted in favor of the bill establishing Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a federal holiday and initially voted in favor of

1099-905: A board member of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and a founder of the Campaign to Fix the Debt . Simpson has been a strong critic of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling Citizens United v. FEC , calling for an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to overturn the Supreme Court's decision in the case. In an interview with Wyoming Public Radio, Simpson said: "I think most Americans would like to see reasonable limits on campaign spending." Simpson has been an outspoken advocate for abortion rights , stating that

1256-633: A case by case basis. Executive Order 10450 stayed partly in effect until 1995 when President Bill Clinton rescinded the order and put in place the " don't ask, don't tell " policy for admittance of gays into the military. In 1998, the order's language concerning employment and sexual orientation was also repealed when Clinton signed Executive Order 13087 . And, in 2017, the order was explicitly repealed when Barack Obama signed Executive Order 13764. Both homosexuals and Communist Party members were seen as subversive elements in American society who all shared

1413-416: A community of similar others from whom they learn about their identity and who reinforce and support that identity. Rather, LGB individuals are often raised in communities that are either ignorant of or openly hostile toward homosexuality." The British gay rights activist Peter Tatchell has argued that the term gay is merely a cultural expression which reflects the current status of homosexuality within

1570-420: A connection between homosexuality and anti-nationalism . He said in an interview with Max Lerner : "You can't hardly separate homosexuals from subversives." Later in that same interview, he drew the line between patriotic Americans and gay men: "But look, Lerner, we're both Americans, aren't we? I say, let's get these fellows [closeted gay men in government positions] out of the government." The term "Homintern"

1727-422: A crime now punishable by up to twenty years in prison if no one is hurt, and punishable by up to life in prison if the arson causes a person's death. Luckily for Simpson, no one was injured in the blaze. Simpson not only played with fire, but also with guns. He played a game with his friends in which they shot at rocks close to one another, at times using bullets they stole from the local hardware store. The goal of

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1884-444: A current state of mind, a wilful desire to betray secrets, while "security" involved behaviours or associations that might lead one inadvertently or unwillingly to betray secrets in the future. Thus, the government and state department gave themselves the ability to expel government officials without any evidence of them being a communist, but by purely the risk they might be due to inadvertent tendencies and possibilities. Even before

2041-404: A fairy". Though "pixie" was a camera-model name at the time, the comparison to "fairy," a derogatory term for a homosexual man, had clear implications. The people at the hearing recognized the slur and found it amusing; Cohn later called the remark "malicious," "wicked," and "indecent." McCarthy's allegiance to Cohn also raised suspicions that the relation between the senator and his chief counsel

2198-607: A former administrator at the University of Wyoming in Laramie , who served in the Wyoming House of Representatives from 1981 to 1984, having represented Sheridan County , while he was then an administrator at Sheridan College . Pete Simpson was the 1986 Republican gubernatorial nominee, having sought the office while his younger brother was serving in the U.S. Senate. Simpson grew to 6'7" (201 cm) and would become

2355-411: A given society, and claiming that "Queer, gay, homosexual ... in the long view, they are all just temporary identities. One day, we will not need them at all." If a person engages in sexual activity with a partner of the same sex but does not self-identify as gay, terms such as ' closeted' , 'discreet', or ' bi-curious ' may apply. Conversely, a person may identify as gay without having had sex with

2512-505: A national narrative rigorously promoted and propagated idealized versions of the nuclear family, heterosexuality, and traditional gender roles in the home and the workplace. In February 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy claimed 205 communists were working in the State Department, Undersecretary of State John Peurifoy said that the State Department had allowed 91 homosexuals to resign. Only two of these were women. Following this,

2669-513: A person from holding a position in government. There were many new regulations and policies put into place to detect and remove gay, lesbian, and bisexual people. The new procedures to search out homosexuals were frequently used to interview and look for signs of sexual orientation. They also looked at places these individuals frequently visited, such as gay bars, and they even found people guilty by association. If their friends or family showed signs of being homosexual, they might also be suspected. By

2826-409: A same-sex partner. Possible choices include identifying as gay socially, while choosing to be celibate , or while anticipating a first homosexual experience. Further, a bisexual person might also identify as "gay" but others may consider gay and bisexual to be mutually exclusive . There are some who are drawn to the same sex but neither engage in sexual activity nor identify as gay; these could have

2983-576: A sexual relationship. During the Army–McCarthy hearings, Cohn denied having any "special interest" in Schine or being bound to him "closer than to the ordinary friend." Joseph Welch , the Army's attorney in the hearings, made an apparent reference to Cohn's homosexuality. After asking a witness, at McCarthy's request, if a photo entered as evidence "came from a pixie", he defined "pixie" as "a close relative of

3140-926: A subcommittee to make preliminary investigations into the "Infiltration of Subversives and Moral Perverts into the Executive Branch of the United States Government." No records of the Wherry-Hill investigation survive beyond press coverage and two published reports. One such report contained the statements of the head of the DC Metropolitan Police Department vice squad, Lieutenant Roy Blick, who testified that 5,000 homosexuals lived in Washington, D.C., and that around 3,700 were federal employees. Lt. Blick's comments, which were speculative at best, further fueled

3297-435: A sudden!" Since this was a mainstream film at a time, when the use of the word to refer to cross-dressing (and, by extension, homosexuality) would still be unfamiliar to most film-goers, the line can also be interpreted to mean, "I just decided to do something frivolous." In 1950, the earliest reference found to date for the word gay as a self-described name for homosexuals came from Alfred A. Gross, executive secretary for

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3454-973: A threat to the organization he had founded. The Subcommittee on Investigations was a subcommittee of the Committee on Expenditures in Executive Departments . This subcommittee chaired by Democratic Senator Clyde R. Hoey from 1949 to 1952 investigated "the employment of homosexuals in the Federal workforce." A related report, known as the Hoey Report, stated that all of the government's intelligence agencies "are in complete agreement that sex perverts in Government constitute security risks." The congressional Wherry-Hill and Hoey Committee investigation hearings were held between March and May, and July and September 1950 respectively. Republican Senator Kenneth Wherry and Democratic Senator Lester Hill formed

3611-710: A tin can costume. The video, aimed at young people, is called "The Can Kicks Back," a reference to the tendencies of members of Congress to forever "kick the can down the road" in order to avoid making difficult decisions about lowering the national debt . In the video, Simpson admonishes younger Americans to make better use of their social media than " instagramming your breakfast and tweeting your first world problems ." He advises younger people to use their social media skills and resources to rally their friends to join The Can Kicks Back. If younger Americans do not take heed, Simpson says, "These old coots will clean out

3768-627: A top intelligence official had told him "every active communist is twisted mentally or physically," and he implied that these people were vulnerable to recruitment by communists because of their "peculiar mental twists" of homosexuality. Due to the image of the State Department now being tainted with homosexuality, many male employees became self-conscious about the possibility of being perceived as homosexual. They often refused to be seen in pairs, and made statements confirming their heterosexuality when introducing themselves. For example, one unnamed employee often said at parties, "Hi, I'm so-and-so, I work for

3925-423: A willingness to disregard conventional or respectable sexual mores . Such usage, documented as early as the 1920s, was likely present before the 20th century, although it was initially more commonly used to imply heterosexually unconstrained lifestyles, as in the once-common phrase " gay Lothario ", or in the title of the book and film The Gay Falcon (1941), which concerns a womanizing detective whose first name

4082-504: Is "Gay". Similarly, Fred Gilbert and G. H. MacDermott 's music hall song of the 1880s, "Charlie Dilke Upset the Milk" – "Master Dilke upset the milk, when taking it home to Chelsea; the papers say that Charlie's gay, rather a wilful wag!" – referred to Sir Charles Dilke 's alleged heterosexual impropriety. Giving testimony in court in 1889, the prostitute John Saul stated: "I occasionally do odd-jobs for different gay people." Well into

4239-535: Is a documentary film that recounts the events of the Lavender Scare. David K. Johnson is part of the project, as the film is based on his book. To help with funding, Josh Howard created a Kickstarter that met its goal in donations. The film was completed, screened at more than 70 film festivals around the world, and opened at theaters in New York City and Los Angeles in 2019. PBS televised the film on June 18, 2019. The 2016 opera Fellow Travelers , based on

4396-414: Is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 19th century, that meaning became increasingly common by the mid-20th century. In modern English , gay has come to be used as an adjective , and as a noun , referring to

4553-818: Is an American politician from Wyoming . A member of the Republican Party , he served as a member of the United States Senate from 1979 to 1997. Simpson was the Republican whip in the U.S. Senate from 1985 to 1995, as majority whip from 1985 to 1987 and minority whip from 1987 to 1995. He also served as co-chair of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform with Democratic Party co-chair Erskine Bowles of North Carolina . Born in Denver , Simpson graduated from

4710-556: Is an artificial category that says little about a person. Our differences and prejudices pale next to our historic challenge." Simpson is on the board of directors at the National Institute for Civil Discourse (NICD). The institute was created at the University of Arizona after the shooting of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords . He is an honorary board member of the humanitarian organization Wings of Hope and co-chair of

4867-457: Is homosexual. The American Psychological Association defines sexual orientation as "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions to men, women, or both sexes," ranging "along a continuum, from exclusive attraction to the other sex to exclusive attraction to the same sex." Sexual orientation can also be "discussed in terms of three categories: heterosexual (having emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to members of

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5024-606: Is perceived as excessively clinical, since the sexual orientation now commonly referred to as "homosexuality" was at that time a mental illness diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). In mid-20th century Britain, where male homosexuality was illegal until the Sexual Offences Act 1967 , to openly identify someone as homosexual was considered very offensive and an accusation of serious criminal activity. Additionally, none of

5181-645: Is possibly the first traceable published use of the word to refer to a homosexual relationship. According to Linda Wagner-Martin ( Favored Strangers: Gertrude Stein and her Family , 1995) the portrait "featured the sly repetition of the word gay, used with sexual intent for one of the first times in linguistic history", and Edmund Wilson (1951, quoted by James Mellow in Charmed Circle , 1974) agreed. For example: They were ... gay, they learned little things that are things in being gay, ... they were quite regularly gay. The word continued to be used with

5338-461: Is sometimes used to refer to individuals, as in "he is a gay" or "two gays were there too," although this may be perceived as derogatory. It was also used for comedic effect by the Little Britain character Dafydd Thomas. To avoid pejorative connotations, the adjective form can be used instead, e.g. "gay person" or "gay people". When used with a derisive attitude (e.g., "that was so gay"),

5495-595: The Board of Governors over the negative use of the word by Chris Moyles advises that "caution on its use"; however, it acknowledges its common use among young people to mean "rubbish" or "lame". The BBC's ruling was heavily criticized by the Minister for Children, Kevin Brennan , who stated in response that "the casual use of homophobic language by mainstream radio DJs" is: "too often seen as harmless banter instead of

5652-750: The Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987 (but voted to sustain Ronald Reagan 's veto). Simpson voted in favor of the Robert Bork Supreme Court nomination and Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States . In 1995, he lost the whip's job to Trent Lott of Mississippi , and he did not seek reelection to the Senate in 1996. From 1997 to 2000, Simpson taught at

5809-799: The Continuity of Government Commission , the American Battle Monuments Commission , and the Iraq Study Group . In 2010, President Barack Obama appointed him to co-chair the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, which made several recommendations on ways to reduce the national debt. He has been a vocal proponent of amending the U.S. Constitution to overturn Citizens United v. FEC (2010) and allow Congress to set reasonable limits on campaign spending in U.S. elections. Simpson

5966-541: The Department of Commerce , were subject to an intense interrogation in April 1958 surrounding her sexuality which was subsequently followed by a confession of homosexual activity in her youth. Tress was forced to resign from her job. This continued in places of lower positions such as public servant units, most notably to Helen G. James . James faced intense examinations into her private and personal life on and off base by

6123-515: The Gaiety Theatre in Dublin. The word may have started to acquire associations of sexual immorality as early as the 14th century, but had certainly acquired them by the 17th. By the late 17th century, it had acquired the specific meaning of "addicted to pleasures and dissipations", an extension of its primary meaning of "carefree" implying "uninhibited by moral constraints". A gay woman

6280-734: The Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard University 's Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge, Massachusetts , and he served for two years as the Director of the Institute of Politics at the Kennedy School . Simpson then returned to his hometown of Cody and practices law there with his two lawyer sons (William and Colin) in the firm of Simpson, Kepler and Edwards. The three are also partners in

6437-548: The University of Wyoming at Laramie , with his brother Pete. He has completed serving as chairman of the UW capital "Campaign for Distinction," which raised $ 204 million. That success was celebrated by the gala event, "An Extraordinary Evening", featuring former President George H. W. Bush (who had reportedly considered Simpson for the vice presidency in 1988) and Vice President Dick Cheney , another UW alumnus, and his wife Lynne Cheney . In 2001, Simpson became Honorary Chairman of

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6594-641: The University of Wyoming 's law school (1958). Simpson served in the Wyoming House of Representatives (1965–1977) and won election to the United States Senate (1978). His father, Milward Simpson , had served in the same seat (1962–1967). Simpson served as the Senate Republican Whip (1985–1995). After serving three terms in the Senate, Simpson declined to seek re-election in 1996. Since leaving office, Simpson has practiced law and taught at different universities. He also served on

6751-621: The White House announced that Simpson would be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom . The June 7, 1994, edition of the now-defunct supermarket tabloid Weekly World News reported that 12 U.S. senators were aliens from other planets, including Simpson. The Associated Press ran a follow-up piece which confirmed the tongue-in-cheek participation of Senate offices in the story. Then-Senator Simpson's spokesman Charles Pelkey , when asked about Simpson's galactic origins, told

6908-454: The community , practices and cultures associated with homosexuality. In the 1960s, gay became the word favored by homosexual men to describe their sexual orientation . By the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st century, the word gay was recommended by major LGBTQ groups and style guides to describe people attracted to members of the same sex, although it is more commonly used to refer specifically to men. At about

7065-832: The gay rights movement . In 1965, four years before the Stonewall Riots , Kameny picketed the White House on the grounds of gay rights. Kameny was also integral to setting up the Mattachine Society of Washington (MSW) in 1960. Distinct from the other Mattachine Societies established in California and other parts of the U.S. in the 1950s, Kameny's MSW held more militant values beyond assimilation into heterosexual culture. These values, in part, stemmed from Kameny's experiences of discrimination from Lavender Scare era policies. Accompanying Kameny in his activism

7222-611: The homophile movements of the U.S., were in many ways defined by McCarthyism and the Lavender Scare. They were underground organizations that maintained the anonymity of their members. A group of eight lesbians in San Francisco formed a group called Daughters of Bilitis in September 1955. It was initially set up as way 'to meet and interact with other lesbians in a safe environment.' They later sought to change laws criminalising homosexuality. The homophile movement, including

7379-434: The illusory correlation between homosexuality and mental illness that prior research, conducted with polluted sampling, had established. Hooker presented a team of three expert evaluators with 60 unmarked psychological profiles from her year of research. She chose to leave the interpretation of her results to others, to avoid potential bias. The evaluators concluded that in terms of adjustment, there were no differences between

7536-738: The "Employment of Homosexuals and Other Sex Perverts in Government," the subcommittee came to be known as the Hoey Committee and while the White House under President Truman was heavily involved in managing its methodology and processes, the driving force behind the congressional investigation of homosexuals was its chief counsel, former FBI agent Francis Flanagan. The Hoey Committee consulted with and heard testimony from law enforcement, judicial authorities, military and governmental security officers, and medical experts. Rather than uncovering any evidence of any federal employee being blackmailed into revealing state secrets on account of their homosexuality,

7693-511: The "public interest," the federal government must "adopt and maintain a realistic and vigilant attitude toward the problem of sex perverts in the Government." The authoritative findings of the Wherry-Hill and Hoey Committee congressional investigations directly helped the Lavender Scare move beyond a strictly Republican rhetoric towards bipartisan appeal, and purging lesbians and gay men from federal employment quickly became part of standard, government-wide policy. The major purpose and achievement of

7850-508: The 12th century from Old French gai , most likely deriving ultimately from a Germanic source. In English, the word's primary meaning was "joyful", "carefree", "bright and showy", and the word was very commonly used with this meaning in speech and literature. For example, the optimistic 1890s are still often referred to as the Gay Nineties . The title of the 1938 French ballet Gaîté Parisienne ("Parisian Gaiety"), which became

8007-421: The 1941 Warner Brothers movie, The Gay Parisian , also illustrates this connotation. It was apparently not until the 20th century that the word began to be used to mean specifically "homosexual", although it had earlier acquired sexual connotations. The derived abstract noun gaiety remains largely free of sexual connotations and has, in the past, been used in the names of places of entertainment, such as

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8164-444: The 1947 establishment of State Department security principles, the United States military had developed discriminatory policies targeting gay men and lesbians . In 1940, President Roosevelt and his Selective Service advisers were convinced by psychiatrists of the need to implement screening programs to determine the mental health of potential soldiers as to reduce the cost of psychiatric rehabilitation for returning veterans. Although

8321-534: The 1980s, and especially in the late 1990s, the usage as a generic insult became common among young people. Use of "gay" in some circumstances continues to be considered a pejorative in present day. As recently as 2023, the American Psychological Association described language like "that's so gay" as heterosexist and heteronormative . The pejorative usage of the word "gay" has been criticized as homophobic . A 2006 BBC ruling by

8478-526: The 2007 novel by Thomas Mallon , is set in McCarthy-era Washington D.C. and centers on the love affair between two men working for the federal government during the Lavender Scare. The 2023 mini-series Fellow Travelers , also based on the 2007 novel by Thomas Mallon, centers on the decades-long romance between two men who first meet during the height of McCarthyism. Alan K. Simpson Alan Kooi Simpson (born September 2, 1931)

8635-581: The AP: "We've got only one thing to say: Klaatu barada nikto ". This was a quotation from a classic science fiction film, The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), in which an alien arrives by flying saucer in Washington, D.C. Simpson also played himself in a cameo appearance for the 1993 film Dave . In December 2012, Simpson filmed a " Gangnam Style " video for a campaign, with a man in

8792-598: The Daughters of Bilitis and the Mattachine Society, has been considered the predecessor to the lesbian and gay liberation movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Changes in popular culture also led to a rise in resistance against the homophobic nature of society. Fiction by authors including John Horne Burns , Truman Capote , Charles Jackson, Carson McCullers , Thomas Hal Phillips , Jo Sinclair , Tereska Torrès , and Gore Vidal led readers to question

8949-701: The George W. Henry Foundation, who said in the June 1950 issue of SIR magazine: "I have yet to meet a happy homosexual. They have a way of describing themselves as gay but the term is a misnomer. Those who are habitues of the bars frequented by others of the kind, are about the saddest people I've ever seen." By the mid-20th century, gay was well established in reference to hedonistic and uninhibited lifestyles and its antonym straight , which had long had connotations of seriousness, respectability, and conventionality, had now acquired specific connotations of heterosexuality. In

9106-519: The Lavender Scare to the anti-Semitism of certain Jews. Washington, D.C., had a fairly large and active gay community before McCarthy launched his campaign against homosexuals, but as time went on and the climate of the Cold War spread, so too did negative views of homosexuals. Because social attitudes toward homosexuality were overwhelmingly negative and the psychiatric community regarded homosexuality as

9263-411: The Lavender Scare. On one occasion, he went so far as to announce to reporters, "If you want to be against McCarthy, boys, you've got to be either a Communist or a cocksucker ." At least one recent historian has argued that, by linking communism and homosexuality with psychological imbalance, McCarthy was employing guilt-by-association when evidence for communist activity was lacking. Political rhetoric at

9420-604: The Lavender Scare. The 'Pervert Elimination Campaign' and the criminalisation of gay men existing in public spaces demonstrates how attitudes towards LGBT people during the Lavender Scare shifted towards intolerance in public spaces. Brandon Andrew Robinson has suggested that this criminalisation of LGBT people in public spaces has impacted how LGBT people now exist within America. He has said that acceptance of LGBT people depends on their ability to assimilate as far as possible into American ' heteronormative institutions', in part due to

9577-741: The OSI (Office of Special Investigation). Following her arrest, OSI investigators threatened to tell James' relatives and friends and forced her to sign her removal from the Air Force with an "undesirable" discharge. Gay men and lesbians were forced into an underground community due to investigations by the government into anyone suspected of being a homosexual. "Gay men and lesbians would serve as discreet character references for one another on security clearance checks." "An unknown number of gay men and lesbians, stripped of their livelihoods, facing embarrassment and unemployment, took their own lives." This highlights

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9734-595: The Republican National Chairman Guy George Gabrielson said that "sexual perverts who have infiltrated our Government in recent years" were "perhaps as dangerous as the actual Communists". The danger was not solely because they were gay, however. Homosexuals were considered to be more susceptible to blackmail and thus were labeled as security risks. McCarthy hired Roy Cohn as chief counsel of his Congressional subcommittee. Together, McCarthy and Cohn – with

9891-722: The Republican Unity Coalition (RUC), a gay/straight alliance within the Republican Party. In that capacity, Simpson recruited former President Gerald Ford to serve on the RUC advisory board. In 2002, Simpson was involved in the Wyoming Republican gubernatorial primary on behalf of former Democrat Eli Bebout of Riverton . Simpson was one of four speakers chosen to eulogize President George H.W. Bush at his state funeral . In 2006, Simpson

10048-420: The Secretary of State Dean Acheson reportedly defended the employees of the State Department, calling McCarthy's antics a "filthy business", the department as a whole responded to the allegations against it with a concentrated effort to remove homosexuals from its ranks. McCarthy often used accusations of homosexuality as a smear tactic in his anti-communist crusade, often combining the Second Red Scare with

10205-404: The Soviets, but also from the "masses" of the decolonizing world. According to Shibusawa, Americans had been convinced that moral decline was inevitable since the Enlightenment period and thought that the narrative of a successful advance toward progress and modernity always ended badly; since the country's earliest days, Americans looked for signs of "overcivilization," and increase in homosexuality

10362-405: The State Department began campaigns to rid the department of communists and homosexuals, and they established a set of "security principles" that went on to inspire the creation of a dual loyalty-security test which became the model for other government agencies, as well as the basis for a government-wide security program under President Dwight D. Eisenhower 's administration. Under the criteria of

10519-445: The State Department's security principles, "disloyal" persons included communists, their associates, and those guilty of espionage, along with persons known for "habitual drunkenness, sexual perversion, moral turpitude, financial irresponsibility or criminal record," and were to be denied federal employment. With the inclusion of "sexual perversion" among those considered unsuitable for federal employment, discrimination against homosexuals

10676-409: The State Department. I'm married and I have three children." In 1953, President Eisenhower signed Executive Order 10450 , which set security standards for federal employment and barred homosexuals from working in the federal government. The restrictions set in place were cause for hundreds of gay people to be forcibly outed and fired from the State Department. The executive order was also the cause for

10833-436: The Treasury before you get there." In 1998, Simpson received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement . In 2011, Simpson and Erskine Bowles were presented the Paul H. Douglas Award for Ethics in Government for their work on the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. In 2022 Simpson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in a ceremony at the White House. Gay Gay

10990-468: The United States now played a vital role "stabilising" the global arena formerly controlled by the European imperial powers, and such became a recurring theme in the larger public discourse. He states this was evident not only in the Luce media, but also in another widely read publication: the magazine Reader's Digest, which served pedagogical, nationalist, and internationalist purposes during the Cold War. Senator Kenneth Wherry similarly attempted to invoke

11147-414: The University of Wyoming with a Bachelor of Science degree, and in 1958 with a Juris Doctor degree. Like his brother, he was a member of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity at the University of Wyoming. In 1954, he married the former Susan Ann Schroll, who was a fellow UW student from Greybull, Wyoming . He served in the United States Army in Germany from 1955 to 1956, with the 10 Infantry Regiment of

11304-534: The Wherry-Hill and Hoey Committees was the construction and promotion of the belief that homosexuals in the military and federal government constituted security risks who, as individuals or working in conspiracy with members of the Communist Party, threatened the safety of the nation. When Cohn brought on G. David Schine as chief consultant to the McCarthy staff, speculation arose that Schine and Cohn had

11461-537: The Wyoming House of Representatives from Park County. Simpson was elected to the United States Senate on November 7, 1978, but was appointed to the post early on January 1, 1979, following the resignation of Clifford Hansen , who had succeeded Milward Simpson , Alan Simpson's own father, in the seat. From 1985 to 1995, Simpson was the Republican whip , Assistant Republican Leader in the Senate, having served with then-Republican Leader Bob Dole of Kansas . He

11618-410: The acceptance/rejection of homosexuals to fight in war. Around 4,000–5,000 out of 18 million men that had been in consideration were turned away. Those serving in the military were ordered to report homosexual acts by other soldiers that were serving. Between two thousand and five thousand soldiers were suspected to be homosexuals in the military, where women were discharged at a higher rate than men. If

11775-422: The administration of President Harry Truman was accused of not taking the "threat" of homosexuality seriously enough. In June 1950, an investigation by the Senate began into the government's employment of homosexuals. The results were not released until December, but in the meantime federal job losses due to allegations of homosexuality increased greatly, rising from approximately 5 to 60 per month. On April 19, 1950,

11932-413: The advisory board of Issue One , a nonprofit organization that seeks to reduce the role of money in politics. In 2016, he joined the advisory board of American Promise , a national, cross-partisan organization that advocates for a 28th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States that would allow the U.S. Congress and states to set limits on campaign finance in U.S. elections. On July 1, 2022,

12089-422: The ambiguous line "he is so gay and fancy-free" attesting to the word's double meaning at that time. As late as 1970, the first episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show has the demonstrably straight Mary Richards ' neighbor Phyllis breezily declaiming that Mary is still "young and gay", but in an episode about two years later, Phyllis is told that her brother is "gay", which is immediately understood to mean that he

12246-445: The armed forces because they were mentally ill: a change from the military's traditional way of approaching homosexuality as a crime. During World War I, punishment of homosexual soldiers was first codified in American military law, and during World War II, final regulations were declared and homosexuals were banned from all branches of the military in 1943. Despite all of the regulations, the need for troops allowed for loopholes regarding

12403-401: The attitude to homosexuality was somewhat more relaxed, although no less negative. Amongst the general public, jokes about the perceived rampant homosexuality within the state department flourished, aided by satirical writers such as Westbrook Pegler . These jokes made the very name of the state department synonymous with homosexuality, and reflected wider American fears that the state department

12560-654: The bar in the Wardman [Hotel] and took me home, and while I was half-drunk he committed sodomy on me." J. Edgar Hoover conducted a perfunctory investigation of the senator's alleged sexual assault of the young man; his approach was that "homosexuals are very bitter against Senator McCarthy for his attack upon those who are supposed to be in the Government." Additionally, Kinsey Institute author and researcher C. A. Tripp writes about McCarthy in his book The Homosexual Matrix , describing him as "predominantly homosexual". Tripp compares McCarthy's (and Cohn's) motivation behind

12717-527: The belief that homosexuals posed a security risk" and criticized the prior Hoey Report: "No intelligence agency, as far as can be learned, adduced any factual data before that committee with which to support these opinions" and said that "the concept that homosexuals necessarily pose a security risk is unsupported by adequate factual data." The Crittenden Report remained secret until 1976. Navy officials claimed they had no record of studies of homosexuality, but attorneys learned of its existence and obtained it through

12874-409: The case of gay , other connotations of frivolousness and showiness in dress ("gay apparel") led to association with camp and effeminacy . This association no doubt helped the gradual narrowing in scope of the term towards its current dominant meaning, which was at first confined to subcultures. Gay was the preferred term since other terms, such as queer , were felt to be derogatory. Homosexual

13031-459: The claimant in the Supreme Court case, Simpson admitted that, as a juvenile, he had been on federal probation for shooting mailboxes and punching a cop and that he "was a monster". One day in Cody, Wyoming, when Simpson was in high school, he and some friends "went out to do damage." They went to an abandoned war relocation structure and decided to "torch" it. They committed arson on federal property,

13188-670: The current "homosexual". In the British comedy-drama film Light Up the Sky! (1960), directed by Lewis Gilbert , about the antics of a British Army searchlight squad during World War II, there is a scene in the mess hut where the character played by Benny Hill proposes an after-dinner toast. He begins, "I'd like to propose..." at which point a fellow diner interjects "Who to?", implying a proposal of marriage. The Benny Hill character responds, "Not to you for start, you ain't my type". He then adds in mock doubt, "Oh, I don't know, you're rather gay on

13345-482: The dominant meaning of "carefree", as evidenced by the title of The Gay Divorcee (1934), a musical film about a heterosexual couple. Bringing Up Baby (1938) was the first film to use the word gay in an apparent reference to homosexuality. In a scene in which Cary Grant 's character's clothes have been sent to the cleaners, he is forced to wear a woman's feather-trimmed robe. When another character asks about his robe, he responds, "Because I just went gay all of

13502-517: The efforts to raise awareness, stop using anti-LGBT language and safely intervene when they are present and anti-LGBT harassment and behavior occurs." Research has looked into the use and effect of the pejorative. In a 2013 article published in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence , University of Michigan researchers Michael Woodford, Alex Kulick and Perry Silverschanz, alongside Appalachian State University professor Michael L. Howell, argued that

13659-524: The enthusiastic support of the head of the FBI , J. Edgar Hoover  – were responsible for the firing of scores of gay men and women from government employment, and strong-armed many opponents into silence using rumors of their homosexuality. In 1953, during the final months of the Truman administration, the State Department reported that it had fired 425 employees for allegations of homosexuality. While

13816-633: The federal government for discriminatory reasons, the movement that was born from it, the Lavender Scare, lived on. One such way was that Executive Order 10450, which was not rescinded until 1995, continued to bar gays from entering the military. Another form of the Lavender Scare that persisted was the Florida Legislative Investigation Committee , also referred to as the FLIC and the Johns Committee. The FLIC

13973-489: The federal government. According to John Loughery, author of a study of gay identity in the 20th century, "few events indicate how psychologically wracked America was becoming in the 1950s ... than the presumed overlap of the Communist and the homosexual menace." The research of Evelyn Hooker , presented in 1956, and the first conducted without a polluted sample (gay men who had been treated for mental illness) dispelled

14130-522: The federal government. It was easy to convince a Congress dictated by a communist containment policy to respond to the perceived homosexual menace because they were already viewed to be not only subversive social elements of American culture, but subversive political elements. Homosexuality was directly linked to security concerns, and more government employees were dismissed because of their homosexual sexual orientation than because they were left-leaning or communist. George Chauncey noted that: "The specter of

14287-423: The firing of approximately 5,000 gay people from federal employment; this included private contractors and military personnel. Not only did the victims lose their jobs, but also they were forced out of the closet and thrust into the public eye as lesbian or gay. Specifically, Truman's loyalty program had been extended through this executive order: "sexual perversion" was added to a list of behaviors that would keep

14444-612: The firm of Burg Simpson Eldredge Hersh & Jardine of Englewood , Colorado. Colin M. Simpson , the third generation of his family in Wyoming politics, was a Republican member of the Wyoming House of Representatives who served as Speaker of the House for the 59th session of the Legislature, 2008 to March 2010. He was a candidate for governor in the primary in 2010, finishing fourth. Simpson teaches periodically at his alma mater ,

14601-551: The game was to come as close as possible to striking someone without actually doing so. Again, Simpson was lucky: no one was killed or seriously injured, or caught by their parents. Simpson and his friends went shooting throughout their community. They fired their rifles at mailboxes, blowing holes in several and killing a cow. They fired their weapons at a road grader. "We just raised hell," Simpson says. Federal authorities charged Simpson with destroying government property and Simpson pleaded guilty. He received two years of probation and

14758-481: The gay label for reasons other than shame or negative connotations. Writer Alan Bennett and fashion icon André Leon Talley are out and open queer men who reject being labeled gay, believing the gay label confines them. Starting in the mid-1980s in the United States, a conscious effort was underway within what was then commonly called the gay community , to add the term lesbian to the name of organizations that involved both male and female homosexuals, and to use

14915-459: The idea that homosexual people in government were a threat to national security - the typical detainee was a young government clerk—this also demonstrates how the Lavender Scare went beyond purely concern with government workers and into the public lives of Americans. This practice demonstrates the impact of the Lavender Scare upon the wider contemporary LGBT community and how homophobic attitudes were able to enter government organisations beyond just

15072-563: The impact this persecution had on individuals' psychological well-being. One of the first and most influential members of the gay rights movements, Frank Kameny , was thrust into unemployment because of his sexual orientation in 1957. He was working as an astronomer for the United States Army Map Service, but was fired as a result of the Lavender Scare and could never find another job in the United States federal government again. This led to Kameny devoting his life to

15229-465: The influx of people into Washington, D.C. during the New Deal created the urban and professional environments that allowed a gay and lesbian subculture to flourish, then World War II accelerated the process: for many lesbians and gay men, the war was a national coming out experience. Mobilization for World War II and the war experience gave birth to a new addition to the American social urban landscape –

15386-447: The initial plan for psychiatric screenings of military recruits included no direct references to homosexuality, within a year, direct references were added – this development in military bureaucratic processes contributed towards the momentum of the military's preoccupation with homosexuality during World War II. The new psychiatric screening directives and procedures introduced to the military the idea that homosexuals were unfit to serve in

15543-437: The intolerant attitudes that developed towards LGBT people within public life during the years of the Lavender Scare. In January 2017, the State Department formally apologized following suggestion by Senator Ben Cardin . Cardin also noted that investigations by the state department into homosexuality of federal employees continued as late as the 1990s. The Lavender Scare , directed by Josh Howard and narrated by Glenn Close ,

15700-447: The investigation uncovered considerable differences of opinion, even within the government, over federal policy of homosexual exclusion and over whether foreign government agents had ever attempted to blackmail homosexuals. The Hoey Committee's conclusive report, released in mid-December that year, ignored the ambiguities of testimony and deemed authoritatively that there was "no place in the United States Government for persons who violate

15857-464: The invisible homosexual, like that of the invisible communist, haunted Cold War America," and homosexuality (and by implication homosexuals themselves) were constantly referred to not only as a disease, but also as an invasion, like the perceived danger of communism and subversives. According to Naoko Shibusawa, visions of the larger world and America's role in it played into the heightened fear and loathing of gays during this period. Shibusawa states that

16014-401: The laws or the accepted standards of morality," especially those who "bring disrepute to the Federal service by infamous or scandalous conduct," stating that lesbians and gay men were "unsuitable" for federal employment because they were "security risks" as well as people engaged in illegal and immoral activities. The committee recommended that the military's policy and procedure should be used as

16171-415: The lesbian and gay community. To many Americans, this visible homosexual subculture seemed to prove their suspicions that the war had loosened puritanical moral codes, broadened sexual mores and certainly represented a viable threat to ideals of puritanical gender roles, heterosexuality, and the nuclear family . After the war, as families were united and as Americans struggled to put their lives back together,

16328-491: The matter should not be a political issue in a party that believes in "government out of our lives" and "the right to be left alone" and "the precious right of privacy". He supports LGBT rights , and equality regardless of race and society , color, creed, gender , or sexual orientation . In an article in The Washington Post , Simpson criticized the since-ended " Don't ask, don't tell " policy, stating "' Gay '

16485-612: The media storm surrounding the gays-in-government controversy; the Wherry-Hill preliminary investigation convinced the Senate to launch a full-scale congressional exploration. The recommended investigation was assigned to the Committee on Expenditures in Executive Departments, led by Senator Clyde Hoey, and the full Senate unanimously authorized the investigation into sexual perversion in the federal workforce; with outrage mounting to astronomical heights, no Senator dared speak out against it lest they risk their political career. Investigating

16642-638: The members of each group. Her demonstration that homosexuality is not a form of mental illness led to its eventual removal from the American Psychiatric Association 's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders . Johnson argues that lesbians were at less risk of persecution than gay men because "lesbians have traditionally had less access to public space than men and therefore were less vulnerable to arrest and prosecution for their homosexuality." However, women in governmental positions, such as Madeline Tress , who worked for

16799-406: The men could not be brought before a judge, most were kept long enough to be profiled and documented into their own "pervert file", officiating the process somewhat. This practice impacted men from across all walks of life—by 1950, two hundred men had been arrested and more than five hundred apprehended without arrest as a result of the 'Pervert Elimination Campaign'. While this did have clear links to

16956-526: The mid 20th century a middle-aged bachelor could be described as "gay", indicating that he was unattached and therefore free, without any implication of homosexuality. This usage could apply to women too. The British comic strip Jane , first published in the 1930s, described the adventures of Jane Gay . Far from implying homosexuality, it referred to her free-wheeling lifestyle with plenty of boyfriends (while also punning on Lady Jane Grey ). A passage from Gertrude Stein 's Miss Furr & Miss Skeene (1922)

17113-740: The mid-1950s, similar repressive and oppressive policies had gone into effect in state and local governments which extended the prohibitions on the employment of lesbians and gay men to cover twelve million workers – more than twenty percent of the United States labor force – who now had to sign oaths attesting to their moral purity to get or to keep their jobs. During the Vietnam War draft , men sometimes attempted to exploit Executive Order 10450 in order to avoid national military service - often by claiming to be homosexual, lying about being homosexual, adopting exaggerated stereotypical mannerisms of gay men , or providing letters from psychiatrists. While this

17270-401: The model; in the areas of explicit policies, standardized procedures, uniform enforcement, constant vigilance, and coordination with law enforcement agencies regarding homosexuals, the armed services set the precedent. Further, the Hoey Committee report stated that in the past, the federal government "failed to take a realistic view of the problem of sex perversion," and that to adequately protect

17427-506: The modern usage developed. The label gay was originally used purely as an adjective ("he is a gay man" or "he is gay"). The term has also been in use as a noun with the meaning "homosexual man" since the 1970s, most commonly in the plural for an unspecified group, as in "gays are opposed to that policy." This usage is somewhat common in the names of organizations such as Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) and Children of Lesbians And Gays Everywhere (COLAGE). It

17584-419: The nation's collective hostility to homosexuality. Homoeroticism became mainstream with the publication of physique photography magazines . In 1949, Cosmopolitan featured an article called "The Unmentionable Minority", which was about the struggle faced by homosexuals. Though the main vein of McCarthyism ended in the mid-1950s when the 1956 Cole v. Young ruling severely weakened the ability to fire people from

17741-513: The now-inactive Fifth Infantry Division , and with the 12 Armored Infantry Battalion of the now-inactive 2nd Armored Division . Simpson had several run-ins with the law during his youth. An amicus brief filed before the United States Supreme Court in the juvenile imprisonment cases Graham v. Florida and Sullivan v. Florida , states: In Simpson's words to this Court, "I was a monster." In that brief, in support of

17898-529: The offensive insult that it really represents. ... To ignore this problem is to collude in it. The blind eye to casual name-calling, looking the other way because it is the easy option, is simply intolerable." Shortly after the Moyles incident, a campaign against homophobia was launched in Britain under the slogan "homophobia is gay", playing on the double meaning of the word "gay" in youth culture, as well as

18055-457: The original meaning of the word being used in popular culture include the theme song to the 1960–1966 animated TV series The Flintstones , wherein viewers are assured that they will "have a gay old time." Similarly, the 1966 Herman's Hermits song " No Milk Today ", which became a Top 10 hit in the UK and a Top 40 hit in the U.S., included the lyric "No milk today, it was not always so; The company

18212-465: The other hand, did not seem to be considered prior to the Cold War. In contrast to the military, the State Department was unconcerned about gays in war. The issue was not on the public's radar, either, except perhaps in the sense of perceptions of the diplomatic corps as consisting of effete, privileged types. In 1947, at the beginning of the Cold War and the heightened concern about internal security,

18369-489: The other sex), gay/lesbian (having emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to members of one's own sex), and bisexual (having emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to both men and women)." According to Rosario, Schrimshaw, Hunter, Braun (2006), "the development of a lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB) sexual identity is a complex and often difficult process. Unlike members of other minority groups (e.g., ethnic and racial minorities), most LGB individuals are not raised in

18526-454: The pejorative use of the word "gay" was a microaggression . They found that college-age men were more likely to repeat the word pejoratively if their friends said it, while they were less likely to say it if they had lesbian, gay or bisexual peers. A 2019 study used data collected in a 2013 survey of cisgender LGBQ college students to evaluate the effects of microaggressions like "that's so gay" and "no homo." It found that increased exposure to

18683-509: The personal lives of those it affected - even those such as Nichols who did not fall victim to the Lavender Scare in losing his occupation. According to Lillian Faderman , the LGBT community formed a subculture of its own in this era, constituting "not only a choice of sexual orientation, but of social orientation as well." The Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis , which formed

18840-473: The popular perception that vocal homophobia is common among closeted homosexuals. The United States had its own popular campaign against the pejorative use of "gay" called Think B4 You Speak. It was created in 2008 in partnership with the Advertising Council, GLSEN, and Arnold NYC . This initiative created television, radio, print and web PSAs with goals "to motivate teens to become allies in

18997-480: The psychologically weak or disturbed [and] many believed the two were working together to undermine the government. David K. Johnson notes that without an idealized traditional American moral fiber, any citizen could succumb to immoral temptations such as homosexuality; and they could ultimately be seduced by communism. The association of homosexuality with communism proved to be a convenient political tool to develop and implement homophobic discriminatory policy throughout

19154-421: The quiet." By 1963, a new sense of the word gay was known well enough to be used by Albert Ellis in his book The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Man-Hunting . Similarly, Hubert Selby Jr. in his 1964 novel Last Exit to Brooklyn , could write that a character "took pride in being a homosexual by feeling intellectually and esthetically superior to those (especially women) who weren't gay...." Later examples of

19311-445: The said culture . For example, the term "gay bar" describes the bar which either caters primarily to a homosexual male clientele or is otherwise part of homosexual male culture. Using it to describe an object, such as an item of clothing, suggests that it is particularly flamboyant, often on the verge of being gaudy and garish. This usage predates the association of the term with homosexuality but has acquired different connotations since

19468-543: The same ideals of antitheism , rejection of bourgeois culture and middle-class morality, and lack of conformity. They were also seen as scheming and manipulative and, most importantly, would put their own agendas above others in the eyes of the general population. McCarthy also associated homosexuality and communism as "threats to the 'American way of life'." [Homosexuals and communists] were perceived as hidden subcultures with their own meeting places, literature, cultural codes, and bonds of loyalty. [They] were thought to recruit

19625-507: The same time, a new, pejorative use became prevalent in some parts of the world. Among younger speakers, the word has a meaning ranging from derision (e.g., equivalent to 'rubbish' or 'stupid') to a light-hearted mockery or ridicule (e.g., equivalent to 'weak', 'unmanly', or ' lame '). The extent to which these usages still retain connotations of homosexuality has been debated and harshly criticized. The word gay arrived in English during

19782-562: The shaft" published in The Washington Post on June 13, 2012, Matt Miller recounted asking Simpson (then a US senator) in 1995 how to fix this problem. Miller stated that Simpson told him "nothing would change until someone like me could walk into his office and say, 'I'm from the American Association of Young People. We have 30 million members, and we're watching you, Simpson. You [mess with] us and we'll take you out.'" He has continued to advocate for fiscal responsibility as

19939-538: The social opprobrium directed at gays as a solution to their potential disloyalty appears never to have been seriously considered. He states that this did not seem to matter because of the factual precedent of a gay U.S. government employee or military man being blackmailed into betraying his nation by the Soviet enemy—or even by the recent Axis enemies—had not actually occurred; it was the association between homosexuality and potential disloyalty which meant distinction between

20096-505: The supposed threat in the rise of homosexuality utilised by competing political economies was compounded by an ideological element to the wave of homophobia that produced the Lavender Scare in post-war America with its connection to empire. Notions about sexuality were part of the narratives that shaped worldviews, defined relationships, and guided action; agitation about potentially traitorous gays, moreover, derived also from efforts to distinguish American civilization or modernity, not only from

20253-530: The tallest Senator in United States history until being overtaken by 6'9" (206 cm) Luther Strange in 2017, 20 years after his retirement. He would later claim to have shrunk to 6'5" (195.5 cm) at 85. Alan Simpson graduated from Cody High School in Cody, Wyoming in 1949 and attended Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan , in 1950 for a postgraduate year. He graduated in 1954 from

20410-437: The term asexual applied, even though asexual generally can mean no attraction, or involve heterosexual attraction but no sexual activity. Some reject the term homosexual as an identity-label because they find it too clinical-sounding; they believe it is too focused on physical acts rather than romance or attraction, or too reminiscent of the era when homosexuality was considered a mental illness. Conversely, some reject

20567-575: The term gay as an identity-label because they perceive the cultural connotations to be undesirable or because of the negative connotations of the slang usage of the word. Style guides, like the following from the Associated Press , call for gay over homosexual : Gay : Used to describe men and women attracted to the same sex, though lesbian is the more common term for women. Preferred over homosexual except in clinical contexts or references to sexual activity. There are those who reject

20724-535: The terminology of gay and lesbian , lesbian/gay , or a similar phrase when referring to that community. Accordingly, organizations such as the National Gay Task Force became the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force . For many feminist lesbians, it was also important that lesbian be named first, to avoid the implication that women were secondary to men, or an afterthought. In the 1990s, this

20881-431: The time often linked communists and homosexuals, and common beliefs among the public were similar, stating that both were "morally weak" or "psychologically disturbed," along with being godless and undermining traditional families. For example, McCarthy spoke on the Senate floor about two individual people, "Case 14" and "Case 62," as communists who were "unsafe risks" which he directly linked to their homosexuality. He said

21038-558: The two became blurred. According to Shibusawa, in other words, if one could see who the traitor was, then the traitor could not commit treason, and so to cope with this paradox, the federal government's security regulations thus tried "to localise treason as a surreptitious evil by making it a function of other patent evils." Thus, states Shibusawa, the State Department followed the logic of categorising together those with putatively undesirable traits - however illogical such categorizations might have actually been. Outside of government circles,

21195-448: The word gay is pejorative . Though retaining other meanings, its use among young people as a term of disparagement is common; 97 percent of American LGBTQ middle and high school students reported hearing its negative use as of 2021. This pejorative usage has its origins in the late 1970s, with the word gaining a pejorative sense by association with the previous meaning: homosexuality was seen as inferior or undesirable. Beginning in

21352-419: The words describing any aspect of homosexuality were considered suitable for polite society. Consequently, a number of euphemisms were used to hint at suspected homosexuality. Examples include "sporty" girls and "artistic" boys, all with the stress deliberately on the otherwise completely innocent adjective. The 1960s marked the transition in the predominant meaning of the word gay from that of "carefree" to

21509-448: Was a prostitute , a gay man a womanizer , and a gay house a brothel . An example is a letter read to a London court in 1885 during the prosecution of brothel madam and procuress Mary Jeffries that had been written by a girl while enslaved inside of a French brothel: I write to tell you it is a gay house ... Some captains came in the other night, and the mistress wanted us to sleep with them. The use of gay to mean "homosexual"

21666-542: Was a real and important reason to expel homosexual people from the State Department, even more important than the possibility of blackmail, and this article was read into the Congressional Record and cited by others. While the Mattachine Society was founded by Harry Hay , a former member of the Communist Party USA, Hay resigned from the society when the membership condemned his politics as

21823-437: Was also used by Confidential magazine, a periodical known for gossiping about the sexuality of politicians and prominent Hollywood stars. Well before the congressional investigations of 1950, U.S. institutions had already developed an intricate and effective system of regulations, tactics, and personnel to uncover homosexuals that would become enforcement mechanisms during the Lavender Scare. Naoko Shibusawa states this system

21980-426: Was becoming emasculated and weak. Significant to wider views of homosexuality in America during the lavender scare were the attempts to "clean up" public spaces from the supposed moral threat of gay people. This manifested in the 'Pervert Elimination Campaign'. The U.S. Park Police on October 1, 1947 began the initiative to arrest gay men in known cruising areas across District of Columbia parkland. While most of

22137-432: Was born in Denver , the son of Milward Simpson and the former Lorna Kooi. His middle name, Kooi, comes from his maternal grandfather, whose parents were Dutch immigrants. In his youth, Simpson was a Boy Scout , and once visited Japanese American Boy Scouts who, along with their families, had been interned near Ralston, Wyoming , during World War II . There, he developed a friendship with Norman Mineta , who later became

22294-738: Was chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs from 1981 to 1985 and again from 1995 to 1997 when Republicans regained control of the Senate. He also chaired the Immigration and Refugee Subcommittee of Judiciary; the Nuclear Regulation Subcommittee; the Social Security Subcommittee and the Committee on Aging. Simpson was a moderate conservative. He supported abortion rights and voted against

22451-418: Was coined in the 1930s, possibly by Cyril Connolly, W. H. Auden, or Harold Norse, as a camp term playing off of "Comintern" ( Communist International ). It was first used to describe an imagined group of gay men who controlled the art world, and later used in reference to "a fantastical gay international that sought to control the world". In 1952, an article written by R. G. Waldeck argued that this conspiracy

22608-633: Was followed by a similar effort to include terminology specifically including bisexual, transgender , intersex , and other people, reflecting the intra-community debate about the inclusion of these other sexual minorities as part of the same movement. Consequently, the portmanteau les/bi/gay has sometimes been used, and initialisms such as LGBTQ , LGBTQ , LGBTQI , and others have come into common use by such organizations, and most news organizations have formally adopted some such variation. The term gay can also be used as an adjective to describe things related to homosexual men, or things which are part of

22765-683: Was founded in 1956 and was not disbanded until 1964. The purpose of the committee was to operate within Florida continuing the work of the Lavender Scare by investigating and firing public school teachers who were gay. During its active years the FLIC was responsible for more than 200 firings of alleged gay teachers. The FLIC was disbanded following the release of the Purple Pamphlet due to public outrage over its explicit and pornographic nature. It has also been suggested that contemporary attitudes towards LGBT people in America have been shaped by

22922-489: Was gay , we'd turn night into day." In June 1967, the headline of the review of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album in the British daily newspaper The Times stated, "The Beatles revive hopes of progress in pop music with their gay new LP". The same year, The Kinks recorded " David Watts ", which is about a schoolmate of Ray Davies, but is named after a homosexual concert promoter they knew, with

23079-585: Was his co-founder for the MSW - Jack Nichols . Nichols was particularly interesting as he was the son of an FBI agent of the same name - Douglas Charles has written in depth on their relationship and how the potential embarrassment that Nichols' sexuality could have caused the FBI destroyed the relationship between the pair. This demonstrates the oppositional nature of governmental organisations and gay rights organisations at this time and how this animosity clearly seeped into

23236-542: Was implicitly built into State Department policy, and it was grandfathered into federal governmental protocol and procedure. Between 1947 and 1950, over 1700 applicants to federal jobs were denied the positions due to allegations of homosexuality. The language of the Lavender Scare was purposely vague as instead of being referred to directly, homosexuals and perverts were often called "moral weaklings," "sexual misfits," "moral risks," "misfits," "undesirables," or persons with "unusual morals." The euphemistic term "security risk"

23393-502: Was not merely professional, or that McCarthy was blackmailed by Cohn. Earlier in 1952, Nevada publisher Hank Greenspun wrote that McCarthy "often engaged in homosexual activities" and was a frequent patron at the White Horse Inn, a Milwaukee gay bar. McCarthy's FBI file also contains numerous allegations, including a 1952 letter from an Army lieutenant who said, "When I was in Washington some time ago, [McCarthy] picked me up at

23550-403: Was often an extension of its application to prostitution: a gay boy was a young man or boy serving male clients. Similarly, a gay cat was a young male apprenticed to an older hobo and commonly exchanging sex and other services for protection and tutelage. The application to homosexuality was also an extension of the word's sexualized connotation of "carefree and uninhibited", which implied

23707-496: Was one of ten (five Democratic and five Republican) contributors to the Iraq Study Group Report. Simpson was appointed in 2010 to co-chair President Obama's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform with Erskine Bowles . Simpson has spoken extensively about the burden being placed on future generations by the structure of current entitlement programs. In an opinion piece, "Young Americans get

23864-537: Was popularized by David K. Johnson 's 2004 book which studied this anti-homosexual campaign, The Lavender Scare . The book drew its title from the term " lavender lads", used repeatedly by Senator Everett Dirksen as a synonym for homosexual males. In 1952, Dirksen said that a Republican victory in the November elections would mean the removal of "the lavender lads" from the State Department . The phrase

24021-479: Was related to a general expansion of the bureaucratic state during the late nineteenth century, with institutions that increasingly systematically categorized people as unfit or fit, including homosexuals in the unfit category along with people who were designated as "criminally insane" or "morally depraved", even though they did not consistently take regulatory action on this until later. Margot Canaday and Michael S. Sherry have stated that Cold War homophobia (as well as

24178-520: Was required to make restitution from his own funds – funds that he was supposed to obtain by holding down a job. As Simpson has described it, "The older you get, the more you realize ... your own attitude is stupefying, and arrogant, and cocky, and a miserable way to live." Simpson stated "I was just dumb and rebellious and stupid. And a different person," adding "You're not who you are when you're 16 or 18. You're dumb and you don't care, and you think you are eternal." Simpson served from 1965 to 1977 in

24335-473: Was seen as a sign of overcivilization. Shibusawa states that sexuality was an elemental way in which hierarchies of power were rationalized in an imperialist framework: who was civilized/uncivilized or worthy/unworthy, and that, by the mid-twentieth century, these rationalizations were deeply informed by a Freudian theory that was ideological but taken and implemented as if it were purely objective science. Because of this, states Shibusawa, many domestically believed

24492-596: Was sometimes successful, other times men were sometimes drafted in spite of their proclaimed homosexuality. This was likely from a demand to fill draft quotas and out of concern that they were attempting to fraudulently dodge the draft. In 1973, a federal judge ruled a person's sexual orientation could not be the sole reason for termination from federal employment, and, in 1975, the United States Civil Service Commission announced that they would consider applications by gays and lesbians on

24649-452: Was thought by many people at the time and many historians since assumed to be simply a lesser version of a Communist — someone with Communist sympathies but no outright party connections. "Loyalty risk" and "security risk" were considered very similar or essentially different terminology for the same thing. But 'when defining the difference between a loyalty risk and a security risk, government officials typically explained that "loyalty" involved

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