This article is the send one of the seri ntag a tailed sight to the events of the Cold War and the evolutn of gay rights Ameri..
Contents:
STGGLE FOR GAY RIGHTS AMERI AND THE COLD WAR
* gay rights during the cold war *
Durg the Cold War, homosexualy was associated wh munism and portrayed as a natnal secury threat. The State Department’s 1950 purge of supposed homosexuals unr Print Harry Tman unleashed “the lavenr sre, ” which st thoands their jobs.
In the face of the charg of beg “un-Amerin, ” historian Simon Hall argu, early gay-rights groups profsed patrtism and appealed to “the natn’s foundg ials of liberty and equaly. In the sprg and summer of 1965, for example, there were gay-rights protts at the Whe Hoe, Pentagon, Civil Service Commissn, and Philalphia’s Inpennce Hall. Activists held up signs readg “First Class Cizenship for Homosexuals;” “Ameri, the Land of the Free.
For Homosexuals Too?
GAY RIGHTS
The activists argued that excludg homosexuals om ernment service, cludg the ary, actually weakened the untry by privg of well-qualified cizens who wanted to serve.
After the Stonewall rt of 1969, more radil anizatns like the Gay Liberatn Front arose to nont police btaly, legal rtrictns, and homophobia. Yet Hall argu that the “appeals of Amerinism have remaed an important feature of the gay rights movement. ” He c the first openly gay man on the ver of a news magaze (Time, 1975): Air Force Sergeant Leonard Matlovich.
Likewise, the Gay Activists Alliance, a “leadg force” for gay rights durg the 1970s, fought to repeal New York’s nsensual sodomy law by appealg to the “Spir of ’76” and the “philosophy of eedom on which the republic was found. Des after the lavenr sre, the appeal to Amerinism was revived durg the era of “don’t ask, don’t tell” the early 1990s, and then aga durg the fight over gay marriage the 2000s. A memo wrten to the Secretary of State 1950 stated that no evince had been found to support the claim that LGBTQ+ people were any threat to natnal secury, and yet “the tenncy toward character weakns has led to the ncln that the known homosexual is unsued for employment the Department.