The Wilblood sndal: the trial that rocked 1950s Bra – and changed gay rights | Books | The Guardian

Contents:

• FROM THE ARCHIVE, 24 JANUARY 1976: GUARDSMEN GAY MAGAZE RECEIVE MARCHG ORRS
• 17 GAY SEX SNDALS THAT ROCKED AMERIN POLICS
• THE WILBLOOD SNDAL: THE TRIAL THAT ROCKED 1950S BRA – AND CHANGED GAY RIGHTS
• THE TE STORY OF ‘A VERY ENGLISH SNDAL’ AND THE TRIALS OF A CLOSETED GAY POLICIAN
• ROYAL GAY SEX VIO SNDAL OUTED
• HUGH GRANT HAS A GAY AFFAIR WH BEN WHISHAW A VERY ENGLISH SNDAL TRAILER

FROM THE ARCHIVE, 24 JANUARY 1976: GUARDSMEN GAY MAGAZE RECEIVE MARCHG ORRS

Eighteen guardsmen the ele Hoehold Divisn are beg discharged om the army for beg volved wh a homosexual magaze, and one officer is also beg lled on to rign his missn was announced the mons Mistry of Defence strsed that Bra’s secury had never been jeopardised through “Iron Curta blackmail. ” Intelligence chiefs had been ncerned about secury - both Brish and NATO’s - after a newspaper allegatn last October that several soldiers the Hoehold Cavalry were volved a homosexual vice rg. A month earlier the glossy magaze for homosexuals, Him, rried an article illtrated wh pictur of four men a variety of pos - fightg, wrtlg, and unrgog punishment.

C., and the forc of homophobia only amplify the nsequence when gay enunters make headl. Many a gay sex sndal ret the urse of Amerin history and transformed the way natnal lears will be remembered for time immemorial. Pl Internatnal Airport known by thori as a popular spot for gay trysts saw s most notor occupant ever on June 11, 2007.

Pl his emphatic claratn he had "never been gay" prompted men claimg to be his ex-lovers to speak out to the prs. The two never publicly acknowledged a sexual relatnship, but the closens earns scty even today, pecially wh Hoover's history of antagonizg gay people, but the FBI matas still that there was no evince Hoover was Foley Gets Too DeepHow much trouble did U. Some historians nsir the men to be the first gay print and vice Brgs Down LBJ HonchoWalter Jenks served as Print Lyndon Johnson's chief of staff, and by many acunts was key to brgg the former Texas senator to his historic posn of power.

17 GAY SEX SNDALS THAT ROCKED AMERIN POLICS

But the New York Post reported that the polician fact was payg for gay sex an tablishment n by Nazi foreign agents. Alben Barkley that the Army handle such sndal by offerg an officer the tools for suici, acrdg to Charl Kaiser's The Gay Metropolis. But the cint would be jt one mark on a sndal-plagued reer and he would eventually rign due to tax evasn by SndalIt would be nice if the first out ngrsman to serve Washgton's halls of power fact ma his own cisn to make his homosexualy known to the world.

Dan Crane had had an affair wh a female page, Studds had to publicly acknowledge his gay sexualy. He would go on to be an outspoken Hoe member supportg same-sex marriage and other gay rights long before public opn swung a directn helpful to LGBT Social Conservative to Out, Poz ActivistRepublin Congrsman Jon Hson started his reer as a young pol reprentg a socially nservative area of Mississippi. Instead, he beme an outspoken gay rights activist.

Jim McGreevey stunned the polil world 2004 when he announced he was gay and had been cheatg on his wife wh a man. Gay bar. At the Tribe Film Ftival 2009, sent rippl across the polil world for intifyg several allegedly closeted policians as gay.

THE WILBLOOD SNDAL: THE TRIAL THAT ROCKED 1950S BRA – AND CHANGED GAY RIGHTS

In the wake of the Larry Craig sndal (see earlier this list), Dick suggted that policians who were a posn to vote agast gay rights spe beg gay themselv served special scty and srn.

Many of the policians the film have nsistently nied mors they are gay, but the film ensur that discsn Number? Fallg From the Bully PulpTed Haggard wasn't jt your n-of-the-l relig lear exposed as a hypocre when a gay sex sndal brought him down 2006. Bh, the man had practilly ma a reer of rallyg churchgoers around anti-LGBT polil , fightg agast same-sex marriage and labelg gay sex as an act nmned by God.

THE TE STORY OF ‘A VERY ENGLISH SNDAL’ AND THE TRIALS OF A CLOSETED GAY POLICIAN

) The tentn may have been to unrle that social privilege offered no protectn, or to rerce the myth that homosexualy is herently an aristocratic perversn or bars … Daniel Mays as Wilblood Agast the Law, the BBC’s adaptatn of the mpaigner’s memoir.

Photograph: Dean Rogers/BBCWilblood his book propos that the prosecutn of proment homosexuals was part of an agenda, strongly urged by the Uned Stat, to weed such people out om important ernment jobs. In Ameri, McCarthy’s red sre had been acpanied by a “lavenr” one, wh mass firgs of gay employe om the state partment. Lurkg somewhere the background are the figur of the spi Burgs and Maclean, whose betrayals ma social privilege, homosexualy and treason seem a mutually rercg try.

ROYAL GAY SEX VIO SNDAL OUTED

It was put to Wilblood durg his trial that was a “feature” of gay men to seek “love associat” different walks of life om their own, and that McNally was fely his social ferr.

Dishont police alg wh gay men was a matter of urse on the streets of London, and entrapment a nstant risk for the unwary. The small group of people, maly women, who surround the r (an old Rolls-Royce) takg the new nvicts away were nveyg msag of support not nmnatn – sayg “keep sg”, givg the thumbs-up and existence of public support for gay people was a new element of the Wilblood se, and featur his book even before the text begs, wh the ditn ( pals to make sure no one missed ) “TO MY MOTHER AND FATHER”. It’s not that homosexuals were always disowned by their fai – support was always a possibily.

Agast the Law agated for civil rights for homosexuals, but the book is also an attack on ndns the prison system, and after his release Wilblood volved himself the procs of rehabilatg crimals, tryg to break the pattern of their reoffendg and returng to prison. He unrstood that the privileged new ia of gay people not beg a separate speci brought obligatns along wh those days hardback and paperback publitn were not smoothly -ordated, to the pot where they unt almost as separate events.

HUGH GRANT HAS A GAY AFFAIR WH BEN WHISHAW A VERY ENGLISH SNDAL TRAILER

It was durg Wilblood’s prison term that the Woolfenn mtee was set up to vtigate the state of the law as regard homosexualy and prostutn, and to make remendatns for reform if need be.

Pamela Hansford Johnson, for stance, her book On Iniquy, subtled “some personal reflectns arisg out of the Moors Murrs trial” and published the year that homosexuals fally received some civil regnn (1967), rells the “ltle storm” she had raised, not long before, “by suggtg, a letter to the Guardian, that was not sirable for Krafft-Ebg [whose Psychopathia Sexualis was tend as a ser study] to be available relatively cheap paperback edn on the bookstalls of English railway statns. Naturally enough Wilblood wanted his book wily and cheaply available, sce one of the pots he ma , by breakg down crimal nvictns by social tegory, was that homosexualy cut across class l.