The Battle Over Gay Teens - TIME

Contents:

• HOW TIME’S REPORTG ON GAY LIFE AMERI SHAPED—AND SKEWED—A GENERATN’S ATTUS
• FLORIDA'S 'DON'T SAY GAY' BILL IS PART OF THE STATE'S LONG, SHAMEFUL HISTORY
• READ THE 'YEP, I'M GAY' ELLEN DEGENER INTERVIEW FROM 1997
• FLORIDA JT PASSED THE "DON'T SAY GAY" BILL. HERE’S WHAT IT MEANS FOR KIDS
• ARE GAY RELATNSHIPS DIFFERENT?
• THE BATTLE OVER GAY TEENS
• NEWSWEEK VER: OBAMA ‘FIRST GAY PRINT’
• WHO WAS OUR FIRST GAY PRINT?

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. 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.

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

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. 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.

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

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

FLORIDA JT PASSED THE "DON'T SAY GAY" BILL. HERE’S WHAT IT MEANS FOR KIDS

When I told my mother eight years later that y, I was gay, she jt looked at me wh a blank stare. In tth, I was a prsed gay teenager who feared that his life was ed bee of this one, immutable flaw.

” I’d e to unrstand om the rearch I’d done the Vassar College library that parents of gay children often felt that was their own flt (also thanks to TIME and all the other news outlets and so-lled experts who blamed homosexualy on a domant mother and passive father). Even before my mother asked me that fateful qutn, TIME had published a ver story on Leonard Matlovich, who was challengg the ban on gay people servg the ary. That and subsequent ver stori — the 1997 Ellen DeGener “Yep, I’m Gay” ver or the 2014 Laverne Cox ver about transgenr civil rights, for example — helped rhape a posive way how people like me thought of ourselv and how the rt of the world saw .

Marc and his mother at the 1993 March on Washgton for Lbian, Gay, and Bi Equal Rights and Liberatn.

ARE GAY RELATNSHIPS DIFFERENT?

My mother me around, too, and by the early 1990s was an activist her own right, volunteerg to lead a support group for gay men whose partners had died om AIDS and helpg found the Queens chapter of PFLAG (once known as Parents, Fai and Friends, of Lbians and Gays). Eric Marc is the thor of Makg Gay History: The Half-Century Fight for Lbian and Gay Equal Rights and the founr and host of a podst of the same name.

Amid the flurry of rabow-lan rporate logos, sponsored events and news ems about gay pengus, is difficult to turn on a televisn or set foot public durg June whout the remr that ...

Months after Sgapore crimalized nsensual gay sex, the cy-state’s clost thg to a Pri event highlights how far s LGBT muny has e—and how far still has to go. Florida has opened an vtigatn to a teacher who showed her stunts a Disney film featurg a gay character durg class.

THE BATTLE OVER GAY TEENS

“I’m very fortable beg gay, ” he says later, a quiet room at the office of his management pany. Be the only openly gay artist signed to a major untry label—a historic moment for the genre. ” As Brothers Osborne’s reer grew, they ma gtur toward cln, startg wh the vio for sgle “Stay a Ltle Longer, ” which featured gay and terracial upl.

Even amid lls for greater cln, the homogeney of the top artists the genre is still strikg. Will nservative rad programmers or ral ncertgoers be as eager to play and tailgate a gay artist, even one they already know and love? What if beg gay is a gift, and your gayns is not somethg to be tolerated but somethg to be celebrated, and even if untanglg the shame and nfn of growg up gay a straight world tak a long time, ’s worth dog so you n e your voice, not only to sg songs about cutoff jeans and hair blowg the breeze but to say, clearly and unapologetilly, that this is who you are?

What if there are a lot of gay boys small towns who haven’t figured out yet and feel overwhelmed by snarky TV sikicks and gltery pop stars bellowg self-empowerment anthems, and what if those gay boys small towns got to have an avatar of their own—if they knew that someone like them was sgg that song about cutoff jeans and hair blowg the breeze on the rad?

NEWSWEEK VER: OBAMA ‘FIRST GAY PRINT’

Crics of what they ll the “Don’t Say Gay” bill fear that will end the teachg of LGBTQ history Florida’s public schools and expose the schools to a flood of lawsus. Disney officials have publicly opposed the new law, argug that “ uld be ed to unfairly target gay, lbian, non-bary and transgenr kds and fai, ” and lled for the urts to validate . In tryg to unrstand why a purple state like Florida fds self the current prediment, very ltle has been said about the state’s long history as Ameri’s breedg ground for toxic anti-gay polics and how this history may have rmed the parental rights bill.

Florida’s renown for homophobic attacks go back to the now-fotten Florida Legislative Invtigatns Commtee, also known as the Johns Commtee, a wch hunt rooted racism, homophobia, and anti-munism.

Named after fluential state senator and former Florida ernor Charley Johns, this ignoble body spent the years of 1957 through 1963 outg, persecutg, and timidatg people spected of beg gay at Florida’s state universi. This effort culmated wh the release 1964 of the report “Homosexualy and Cizenship Florida, ” also known as “The Purple Pamphlet” bee of s lurid ntent.

WHO WAS OUR FIRST GAY PRINT?

It noted “the extent of filtratn to agenci supported by state funds by practicg homosexuals. Des after the Johns Commtee me Save Our Children, a 1977 anti-gay rights csa led by Ana Bryant, a untry mic sger and nner up to the Miss Ameri tle. Wily-regnized as the first anized opposn to gay rights the Uned Stat, this notor extravaganza of li, sults, and nspiracy theori about homosexuals succsfully st gay men as pedophil and predators overturng an ordance enacted by Da County banng discrimatn hog, employment and public acmodatn on the basis of sexual orientatn.

Throughout the repeal mpaign Bryant routely referred to homosexuals as “human garbage, ” while cricizg the ordance “as an attempt to legimize homosexuals and their recment of our children. ” In ads nng Da County newspapers Bryant ntend that “the recment of our children is absolutely necsary for the survival and growth of homosexualy—for sce homosexuals nnot reproduce, they mt rec, mt hen their ranks. The csa prompted Florida’s legislature to enact the natn’s first ban on gay adoptns, even though at the time no gay adoptn had taken place anywhere Florida.

It also ntributed to Florida beg one of the last stat to legalize homosexual sex; only did so 2003 when the Supreme Court overturned the state’s banng sodomy, alongsi the sodomy laws of 13 other stat, the Lawrence v. Bryant’s tactics were also emulated across the Uned Stat, ocsng a wave of gay-rights feats other stat, cludg rtorg Arkansas’ anti-sodomy law and banng gays and lbians om teachg public schools Oklahoma. Bryant’s anti-gay csa also help give rise to the Christian Right by herg the Moral Majory, whose founr, televangelist Jerry Falwell, famoly issued a “claratn of war on homosexualy” 1979.