Florida's 'Don't Say Gay' Bill Is Part of a Shameful History | Time

Contents:

• HOW TIME’S REPORTG ON GAY LIFE AMERI SHAPED—AND SKEWED—A GENERATN’S ATTUS
• GAY
• READ THE 'YEP, I'M GAY' ELLEN DEGENER INTERVIEW FROM 1997
• SEX: HOW GAY IS GAY?
• GAY MARRIAGE ALREADY WON | APR. 8, 2013
• FLORIDA'S 'DON'T SAY GAY' BILL IS PART OF THE STATE'S LONG, SHAMEFUL HISTORY

HOW TIME’S REPORTG ON GAY LIFE AMERI SHAPED—AND SKEWED—A GENERATN’S ATTUS

In that spir, TIME is publishg this article by Eric Marc, thor of Makg Gay History.

GAY

Over lunch one afternoon at our kchen table, wh the latt issue of TIME turned to an article about Ana Bryant’s succsful mpaign to repeal a gay-rights bill Da County, Fla., I raged over the jtice of both Bryant’s assertn that gay people were a danger to children and the wardly legislators who ved to prejudice and ignorance.

Unknowgly, my red-faced outrage offered another clue to my mother that there was more than a ltle self-tert at stake for me the fate of the gay civil-rights movement. Weeks later, she would ask me if I was gay. June 20, 1997 TIME article about Ana Bryant’s mpaign to repeal a gay-rights bill Da County, Fla.

It wasn’t until more than a later, when I began rearchg an oral-history book on what was then lled the gay and lbian civil-rights movement, that I realized that TIME magaze had also played a role shapg how my mother thought of homosexuals — and how she’d e to view her teenaged gay son. In my rearch, as I stggled to ga an unrstandg of why people saw homosexuals as sick, sful and crimal, I stumbled on a 1966 say TIME that jt about burned the sk off my face as I read . I thk was meant as a medatn on what to make of the then-growg visibily of gay life Ameri.

READ THE 'YEP, I'M GAY' ELLEN DEGENER INTERVIEW FROM 1997

The media those years, as is most often the se today, reflected society’s prevailg views about homosexuals.

Back then, homosexualy was still nsired a treatable mental illns, sexual relatns between two people of the same sex uld get you arrted almost every state, and thoands — perhaps tens of thoands — of gay men and lbians had been hound out of feral employment sce Print Eisenhower signed an executive orr 1953 banng them om ernment jobs.

In New York, a state law about “disorrly” nduct was terpreted as makg illegal to serve known homosexuals alhol, and the police routely raid gay bars.

SEX: HOW GAY IS GAY?

The now-celebrated 1969 Stonewall uprisg — triggered by a police raid of the Stonewall Inn gay bar — which is beg marked this month by 50th anniversary celebratns, march and protts, got a particularly pungent headle the New York Daily News: “Homo Nt Raid, Queen Be Are Stgg Mad. ” The Village Voice, an alternative downtown newspaper, published an article the immediate aftermath of the first night of rtg which the reporter ed a slur to refer to the uprisg’s participants, earng the Voice, jt days after the start of the uprisg, one of the first public protts that would e to characterize the newly ant era of “gay liberatn. 31, 1969, ver story was headled “The Homosexual: Newly Visible, Newly Unrstood.

And yet the picture the article pated of the “newly unrstood” homosexual was still drippg wh sarsm and ntempt. One sectn of the report noted several “typ” of homosexuals: “The Blatant Homosexual, ” “The Secret Lifer, ” “The Dperate, ” “The Adjted, ” “The Bisexual, ” “The Suatnal-Experimental.

GAY MARRIAGE ALREADY WON | APR. 8, 2013

” After scribg the different tegori, the wrer not: “The homosexual subculture, a semi-public world, is, whout qutn, shallow and unstable.

FLORIDA'S 'DON'T SAY GAY' BILL IS PART OF THE STATE'S LONG, SHAMEFUL HISTORY

” Although that ver story also said some paratively nice thgs about homosexuals, is any wonr members of the newly formed Gay Liberatn Front and the Dghters of Bilis (an anizatn for lbians found 1955 San Francis) picketed the Time-Life buildg after s publitn? ” Gay people weren’t gog to take anymore.