The Dark History of Anti-Gay Innuendo - POLITICO Magaze

Contents:

• THE DARK HISTORY OF ANTI-GAY INNUENDO
• "KGB KARAOKE GAY BAR THE MOST TERTG MEP NIGHTCLUB

THE DARK HISTORY OF ANTI-GAY INNUENDO

The Jew, the polil, the Roma, the Spanish Republin, a dangero crimal, a crimal, a war crimal, a Jehovah's Wns, homosexual. Bohlen’s volvement at Yalta ma him spect the ey of some Republins, led by Senator Joe McCarthy, who tried to pat him as not only soft on the Soviets but also gay. “I don’t say every homosexual is a subversive and I don’t say every subversive is a homosexual, ” Nebraska Senator Kenh Wherry had warned 1950.

” While another source admted to havg no relatnship wh Bohlen, he nohels volunteered to the FBI that, “Bohlen walks, acts and talks like a homosexual. Moral disgt was not the only nsiratn that ma beg gay a disqualifyg tra for ernment service at the time; gays, was wily believed, were also uniquely vulnerable to blackmail. So reprehensible was beg gay, the thkg went, that a gay person would rather betray his untry than risk exposure of his shameful secret.

"KGB KARAOKE GAY BAR THE MOST TERTG MEP NIGHTCLUB

The month after Hoover posed his report on Bohlen, Eisenhower signed Executive Orr 10450, which permted the feral ernment to fire those spected of “sexual perversn, ” a phemism for beg gay. Over the ensug s, far more people (timat range to the thoands) would lose their jobs over (real or alleged) homosexualy than spected munist sympathi; many thoands more were nied jobs the first place.

Fast-forward over six s to the prent, and the same smear tactics are beg employed, aga service of a dub narrative volvg supposed rptn of prumed gay people by a hostile foreign power. Graham, who cled to ment for this story, has nied he’s gay. Even if he secretly were, the accatn that he is therefore sceptible to blackmail is historilly groundls, predited upon the same flawed assumptn most people held about gays at the height of the Cold War: that they would m treason orr to avoid beg outed.

But of all the Amerins who did betray their untry by mtg pnage for a foreign power, there is not a sgle example of a gay person blackmailed to dog so. A 1991 study found that the 117 spy s disvered sce World War II, only six volved gays, and none of the was sexual orientatn a cidg factor. That same year, asked about the impendg outg of his spokman, then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney referred to the blackmail ratnale as “an old chtnut” ed to bar gay people unfairly om servg sensive ernment posns.