Thursday, January 30, 2025

The Headline Reads: "These People Are Frightened to Death”

Fired from government jobs, kicked out of the military, persecuted and jailed for being ourselves, denied housing and jobs, and kicked out from bathrooms. That wasn't now but in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

It was a time know as "The Lavender Scare!" You all know about the Stonewall Uprising but do you know what it happened before Stonewall, and why for us trans people it happened long before Stonewall back before the Compton Cafeteria rebellion. Back before Dewey’s Lunch Counter protest, before the Black Cat Tavern protest there was the Executive Order 10450.

The National Archives writes about the "The Lavender Scare!"...
Summer 2016, Vol. 48, No. 2
By Judith Adkins


The Red Scare, the congressional witch-hunt against Communists during the early years of the Cold War, is a well-known chapter of American history. A second scare of the same era has been much slower to make its way into public consciousness, even though it lasted far longer and directly impacted many more lives.

Beginning in the late 1940s and continuing through the 1960s, thousands of gay employees were fired or forced to resign from the federal workforce because of their sexuality. Dubbed the Lavender Scare, this wave of repression was also bound up with anti-Communism and fueled by the power of congressional investigation.

The purge followed an era in which gay people were increasingly finding each other and forming communities in urban America. During World War II, many men and women left behind the restrictions of rural or small-town life for the first time. After the war, young people poured into cities, where density and anonymity made pursuit of same-sex relationships more possible than ever.
Does this sound similar to what is happening now? Executive Orders, throwing us out of the military, locking us out of jobs...  creating fear of us?
This publicity did not, however, make homosexuality more acceptable, in part because virtually no gay people were open about their sexuality. Also, the country was in the midst of a more general sex-crime panic, stirred up by a few highly publicized cases. In this context, greater public awareness of homosexuality coincided with growing unease and, in many parts of the country, an increase in official repression. Certainly this was true in Washington, DC.

In 1947 the U.S. Park Police initiated in the city a "Sex Perversion Elimination Program," targeting gay men for arrest and intimidation. A year later, Congress passed an act "for the treatment of sexual psychopaths" in the nation's capital. That law facilitated the arrest and punishment of people who acted on same-sex desire and also labeled them mentally ill. Homosexuality was perceived as a lurking subversive threat at a time when the country was coping with tremendous social change as well as rising anxiety about another lurking subversive threat: Communism.
Now we are banned from government bathrooms, we are now banned from the military!
"Case 14" was, according to McCarthy, a known homosexual who had been ousted by the State Department but then rehired. In his discussion of that man and of "Case 62," McCarthy directly linked homosexuality and Communism. A top intelligence official had reportedly told him that "practically every active Communist is twisted mentally or physically in some way." McCarthy implied that the men in these two cases were susceptible to Communist recruitment because as homosexuals they had what he called "peculiar mental twists."
How does the saying goes, something like "Those who don't learn from history are set to repeat it."
A closer look at the life of anti-gay crusader
Los Angeles Blade
By James Patterso
January 21, 2025


In 1977, Anita Bryant, who recently died, made the career mistake of a lifetime when she began an anti-gay campaign in Miami. Her campaign failed for two important reasons.

First, Bryant mistook the political strength of the gay movement across the U.S. Secondly, her use of religion to promote a campaign of bigotry raised serious questions about her honesty.

After being crowned Miss Oklahoma in 1958, Bryant spent the next two decades performing at state fairs, veterans’ events, religious and charity events, and churches. She performed with Bob Hope’s U.S.O. tours and visited veterans’ hospitals. She promoted Christian living and Florida orange juice. She once said she had abundant energy because “the Lord Jesus is my Vitamin C.” 

In 1977, Bryant and husband Bob Green, a former Miami radio disc jockey, began an anti-gay campaign called “Save Our Children.” The campaign’s goal was to reverse Miami-Dade County’s policy barring discrimination against gays. She raised concerns about gay teachers in public schools.  
The Republican House recently passed a bill called the "Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act" still trying to protect children from us. Out of her campaign to "Save the Children" in California came Harvey Milk in 1978 during the time of T1 purges of us. The HuffPost wrote this...
Gay brothers and sisters, you must come out. Come out to your parents. I know that it is hard and will hurt them, but think about how they will hurt you in the voting booth! Come out to your relatives. Come out to your friends, if indeed they are your friends. Come out to your neighbors, to your fellow workers, to the people who work where you eat and shop. Come out only to the people you know, and who know you, not to anyone else. But once and for all, break down the myths. Destroy the lies and distortions. For your sake. For their sake.
His words ring true for today! 
Somewhere along the way, particularly in religious environments, coming out is an act more along the lines of a confession than a natural step toward self-awareness. The result is that it makes me think long and hard before I insist that every LGBT person show their hand, knowing for certain that the church still packs a punch. It's so very difficult for the average person to hold the ground of what they know to be true about themselves against an onslaught of biblical magnitude that can be both confusing and demeaning. The reality is that most people aren't gay because it's a statement of style; it's just one portion, one quality that helps complete the picture of their own identity. Yet we live in a time when coming out often requires that one be prepared to defend their position, as if it is in some way a political statement or a religiously justifiable way of being. We are asked to debate what is, in the end, ultimately undebatable. Most of us start out with little more than the story of how we just "know." It's the story, and it's all we've got.
There are so many similarities between then and now: both instigated by Republicans and far right Churches. You can hide in your closets or you can do what Mr. Milk said, "you must come out" It was valid then and it is valid now. We licked them once and we can do it again!

We shall overcome
We shall overcome
We shall overcome, someday
Oh, deep in my heart
I know that I do believe
We shall overcome, someday
We shall be alright
We shall be alright
We shall be alright, someday
Oh, deep in my heart
I know that I do believe
We shall overcome, someday
We shall live in peace
We shall live in peace
We shall live in peace, someday
Oh, deep in my heart
I know that I do believe
We shall overcome, someday
We are not afraid (oh Lord)
We are not afraid (oh Lord)
We are not afraid, today
Oh, deep in my heart
I know that I do believe
We shall overcome, someday
We shall overcome (oh Lord)
We shall overcome (oh Lord)
We shall overcome, someday
Oh, deep in my heart
I know that I do believe
We shall overcome, someday
Songwriters: Jerry Peters

3 comments:

  1. Richard Nelson1/30/25, 10:45 PM

    I must wonder how many people in the LGBTI+ communities are ready for what is coming down the road? I grew up in the days when it was still illegal to be gay and everything that went along with that idea. Those who have been and are sitting in the “it’s ok” seat are beginning to realize that it isn’t ok, at least most I hope are. Too bad with the early warning systems in place brought to the community by both this site and by mine were not taken to heart. We still really do not have a strong network to fight back and are still relying too much on the powers that be which can turn on us when the going gets tough. Sure, we need them to pass a few laws here and there but remember if the fascist crap really hits the fan all your safe state laws will be no more. The old union song line “There is nothing left to do but organize and fight,” is where we must work out from now. One question I keep asking is and I hope Keith Brown touched on it this evening when people from Ct. Pride were going to be on the show is, “What are WE doing to protect Ourselves now that the proud boys are freely roaming around. After last years no action by the cops in Hartford when a group of right-wing folks freely harassed folks we need something and stop relying on people whose unions endorsed trump. Remember the least fascist among you is still a fascist.

    What I find interesting is the shady logic by Mc Carthy and boys when one of the biggest closeted homosexuals was sitting in the chair next to him helping along with the persecution of our people. Today one does not even have to be closeted to participate in the madness as the Gays Against Groomers have shown us. Face to face we are with an “enemy within.”

    Twisted logic as from what I know and from what I read the Communist Party after Stalin was not our friend even if we fought alongside the revolutionaries in Russia. As a young gay man trying to find my place in the revolution of the mid-sixties one place, I did not look very deeply was the Communist party even if I did collect signatures for Gus Hall and Angela Davis in downtown Hartford. One reason that Harry Hay left the party was because of their un-acceptance of him being gay. Never mind all the good he had done and did for them.

    So, with a commie under everyone's bed I guess Mc Carthy thought throwing in homosexuals would really make the nice good godly amerikkkans afraid, really afraid. Of course, without a doubt we were agents of disease, degenerate, deadly, freaky, gross, and out to get little Bobby and Suzy. They have God we did not.

    I think I like the words of F. Jay Deacon an early pastor at MCC in Hartford 1977 who said these words after his car was torched the day after the vote in Dade County Florida, (Anita Bryant and Save the Children). He said, “I am not surprised, for Save Our Children has now given license to the ugliest possibilities of the human heart.” He also called for the Lesbian and Gay community to come out, be ourselves and that we need each other. “We do not need these institutions and churches that cannot and will not affirm our rights and our humanity. We must build communities and institutions of our own.” He goes on to tell Mrs. Jimmy Carter who was on a world-wide Human Rights speaking tour to come home, “for your nation is unqualified to speak to the world of human rights and I am insulted that it should try.” I will not even get into what I think about this regime today.

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    Replies
    1. Listen to Richard, he was there on the frontlines back when I was too scared, he worked for the first non-discrimination law for Connecticut. He is one of the pioneer leading our way for our right.

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  2. Employees become a security threat when they feel there is something to hide. It does not matter what the perceived offense maybe. There is no difference, if you feel you must hide some aspect of your sexuality or sexual identity or if you're cheating on your spouse. Trump is a puppet on a string. I think he is incapable of independent thought. He parrots what people of hate want so he can stay in power.

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