Jaguars strength ach is first male ach a major US-based pro league to e out as gay - The Boston Globe

Contents:

• JAGUARS STRENGTH ACH KEV MAXEN OUT AS GAY
• JAGUARS STRENGTH ACH IS FIRST MALE ACH A MAJOR US-BASED PRO LEAGUE TO E OUT AS GAY
• EX-PATRTS LEMAN RYAN O'CALLAGHAN, WHO ME OUT AS GAY, RELLS ROBERT KRAFT'S SUPPORT

JAGUARS STRENGTH ACH KEV MAXEN OUT AS GAY

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.

JAGUARS STRENGTH ACH IS FIRST MALE ACH A MAJOR US-BASED PRO LEAGUE TO E OUT AS GAY

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.

EX-PATRTS LEMAN RYAN O'CALLAGHAN, WHO ME OUT AS GAY, RELLS ROBERT KRAFT'S SUPPORT

For Homosexuals Too? 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.