Columnist Frank Bruni puts an interesting question to opponents of marriage equality:
If you wade into my column today about Craig Claiborne’s life, you’ll find reference to a 1963 story in The Times with this archaic headline: “Growth of Overt Homosexuality in City Provokes Wide Concern.”
It’s a story that has been noted before by writers and others mulling the history and progress of gay people in America, and it’s a sad, chilling glimpse into the climate of suspicion and disapproval that existed even in an urban center as cosmopolitan as New York back then. I bring it up because the forthcoming Claiborne biography that sparked my column, “The Man Who Changed the Way We Eat,” by Thomas McNamee, notes that it appeared several years into Claiborne’s stint at The Times, as his star rose and he mingled with colleagues who knew or at least suspected that he was gay.
The first sentence of the story refers to “the problem of homosexuality,” which is, according to a later sentence, “the subject of growing concern of psychiatrists, religious leaders and the police.” There’s mention of “the homosexual trade.”
How must it have made Claiborne feel? And how much did it and other cultural signals of condemnation or revulsion complicate his quest—and the quests of so many gay and lesbian people of his era—for happiness?
We’ve come a very, very long way since then, and should never be blasé or dismissive or ungrateful about that. But we haven’t come far enough. And one of the questions I’d ask opponents of same-sex marriage, which is the hot-button gay issue of the moment, isn’t so different from the question I just raised about that 1963 Times article: what’s the signal being sent to gay people? To gay teens and young adults, for example, who may wonder if they’re somehow lesser, somehow warped? What sort of special challenge are you creating for them? What sort of burden?
Even without that burden, the slog to fulfillment and contentment can be a tough one: just look at all the people around you who still haven’t quite arrived there. Just look inside yourself.
Why make that slog harder for someone than it has to be?
It's a question I've been thinking of, from another angle, since news that longtime CBS reporter Mike Wallace died over last weekend at the age of 93.
One of Wallace's most famous- in some quarters, notorious- TV productions was a 1967 documentary called The Homosexuals. It was pretty much all of a piece with the attitudes Bruni cites as being au courant in the best circles (not to mention the worst) of the day. SFGate has a clip and some interesting commentary on it here.
The program- which I saw (back then there were only three channels on TV, and network documentaries were events; that program got twenty percent of the US viewing audience that night)- took three years to put together and was the subject of all kinds of consternation at CBS:
After assembling a rough cut, Peters approached Mike Wallace to anchor the hour. Wallace was initially reluctant but after viewing the program enthusiastically agreed. Despite his enthusiasm, Wallace's commentary disparaged homosexuals.
Salant did try to kill the documentary, but stories about it began appearing in the trade press, putting CBS into a potentially embarrassing situation were it not to air. In mid-1965, Salant gave Peters the go-ahead to complete the episode. Peters worked with the New York chapter of the Mattachine Society to secure interviews with two additional gay subjects, Lars Larson and Jack Nichols, both of whom were fully accepting of their sexuality. Nichols later recalled his encounter with Wallace:
Salant later pulled the episode from the schedule and assigned producer Harry Morgan to re-edit it. According to Wallace, Salant found the piece sensationalistic; however, C. A. Tripp, a psychologist who had put CBS in touch with his patient Larson, claimed that Salant felt the piece was pro-homosexuality. Morgan scrapped all but about 10 minutes of Peters' final cut. CBS felt that the self-accepting gay men made too favorable of an impression, so Morgan edited two of the interviews to make the men seem unhappier...
The first interview subject was a gay man named Lars Larson, who appeared undisguised and who spoke positively about his sexuality. Following his interview, Wallace gave the results of a CBS News poll that found that Americans considered homosexuality more harmful to the United States than adultery, abortion or prostitution, that two-thirds of Americans described their reaction to homosexuality as "disgust, discomfort or fear" and that one in ten described their reaction as "hatred". Just ten percent believed homosexuality was a crime but the majority still believed it should be criminally sanctioned.
Following the poll, another homosexual was interviewed from his psychiatrist's couch with his face obscured by shadow. He described coming out to his family, saying they treated him "like some wounded animal they were going to send to the vet." Following this man was another unobscured subject, identified as "Warren Adkins" but who was in fact Jack Nichols, co-founder of the Washington, D.C. branch of the gay rights group the Mattachine Society. He contrasted the comments of the previous subject, saying that he had come out to his family at age 14 and, far from being treated like a sick animal, they treated him with warmth and understanding.
After remarks from Socarides advocating the disease model of homosexuality, Wallace discussed the legal aspects of homosexuality, noting that England was preparing to de-criminalize homosexual acts. Federal judge James Braxton Craven, Jr., from North Carolina advocated a re-evaluation of United States law, commenting, "Is it not time to redraft a criminal statute first enacted in 1533?" Following footage of Nichols and Mattachine D.C. co-founder Frank Kameny picketing Independence Hall and the State Department, Kameny, under his real name, advocated a re-examination of federal law that placed a blanket ban on known homosexuals receiving security clearances.
Next, Albert Goldman (then an English professor at Columbia University) and openly gay author and playwright Gore Vidal debated homosexuality, with an emphasis on the presence of homosexuals in the creative arts. Goldman asserted that homosexuality "is just one of a number of...things all tending toward the subversion, toward the final erosion, of our cultural values." Vidal, asserting that homosexuality is as natural as heterosexuality, countered by saying "The United States is living out some mad Protestant nineteenth-century dream of human behavior....I think the so-called breaking of the moral fiber of this country is one of the healthiest things that's begun to happen."
Wallace closed with an interview with a homosexual, with a wife and two children, who claimed that the narcissism of gay men made it impossible for two men to form a long-term loving relationship. Wrapping up the hour, Wallace concluded:
For his part, anchor Mike Wallace came to regret his participation in the episode. "I should have known better," he said in 1992. Speaking in 1996, Wallace stated, "That is — God help us — what our understanding was of the homosexual lifestyle a mere twenty-five years ago because nobody was out of the closet and because that's what we heard from doctors — that's what Socarides told us, it was a matter of shame." However, Wallace was at the time of broadcast close friends with noted designer James Amster (creator of the landmark Amster Yard courtyard in New York City) and Amster's male long-term companion, men whom Wallace later described as "a wonderful old married couple" and "[b]oth people that [he] admired". Despite this personal knowledge, Wallace relied on the American Psychiatric Association's categorization of homosexuality as a mental illness rather than his own experience in creating the episode. As recently as 1995, Wallace told an interviewer that he believed homosexuals could change their orientation if they really wanted to.
If you wade into my column today about Craig Claiborne’s life, you’ll find reference to a 1963 story in The Times with this archaic headline: “Growth of Overt Homosexuality in City Provokes Wide Concern.”
It’s a story that has been noted before by writers and others mulling the history and progress of gay people in America, and it’s a sad, chilling glimpse into the climate of suspicion and disapproval that existed even in an urban center as cosmopolitan as New York back then. I bring it up because the forthcoming Claiborne biography that sparked my column, “The Man Who Changed the Way We Eat,” by Thomas McNamee, notes that it appeared several years into Claiborne’s stint at The Times, as his star rose and he mingled with colleagues who knew or at least suspected that he was gay.
The first sentence of the story refers to “the problem of homosexuality,” which is, according to a later sentence, “the subject of growing concern of psychiatrists, religious leaders and the police.” There’s mention of “the homosexual trade.”
How must it have made Claiborne feel? And how much did it and other cultural signals of condemnation or revulsion complicate his quest—and the quests of so many gay and lesbian people of his era—for happiness?
We’ve come a very, very long way since then, and should never be blasé or dismissive or ungrateful about that. But we haven’t come far enough. And one of the questions I’d ask opponents of same-sex marriage, which is the hot-button gay issue of the moment, isn’t so different from the question I just raised about that 1963 Times article: what’s the signal being sent to gay people? To gay teens and young adults, for example, who may wonder if they’re somehow lesser, somehow warped? What sort of special challenge are you creating for them? What sort of burden?
Even without that burden, the slog to fulfillment and contentment can be a tough one: just look at all the people around you who still haven’t quite arrived there. Just look inside yourself.
Why make that slog harder for someone than it has to be?
It's a question I've been thinking of, from another angle, since news that longtime CBS reporter Mike Wallace died over last weekend at the age of 93.
One of Wallace's most famous- in some quarters, notorious- TV productions was a 1967 documentary called The Homosexuals. It was pretty much all of a piece with the attitudes Bruni cites as being au courant in the best circles (not to mention the worst) of the day. SFGate has a clip and some interesting commentary on it here.
The program- which I saw (back then there were only three channels on TV, and network documentaries were events; that program got twenty percent of the US viewing audience that night)- took three years to put together and was the subject of all kinds of consternation at CBS:
After assembling a rough cut, Peters approached Mike Wallace to anchor the hour. Wallace was initially reluctant but after viewing the program enthusiastically agreed. Despite his enthusiasm, Wallace's commentary disparaged homosexuals.
The average homosexual, if there be such, is promiscuous. He is not interested or capable of a lasting relationship like that of a heterosexual marriage. His sex life, his love life, consists of a series of one–chance encounters at the clubs and bars he inhabits. And even on the streets of the city — the pick-up, the one night stand, these are characteristics of the homosexual relationship.Friendly generally approved of the first version but believed that it was necessary to include information on same-sex sexual practices. When those practices were explained to him, however, he changed his mind. While the documentary was still in production, Friendly was promoted to the presidency of CBS News but left soon after over a disagreement over the network's coverage of the Vietnam War. He was replaced by Richard S. Salant, who was known for his cost-consciousness, which put the future of the documentary and the CBS Reports series in question.
Salant did try to kill the documentary, but stories about it began appearing in the trade press, putting CBS into a potentially embarrassing situation were it not to air. In mid-1965, Salant gave Peters the go-ahead to complete the episode. Peters worked with the New York chapter of the Mattachine Society to secure interviews with two additional gay subjects, Lars Larson and Jack Nichols, both of whom were fully accepting of their sexuality. Nichols later recalled his encounter with Wallace:
[A]fter we finished and the camera was turned off, Mike Wallace sat down with me and talked for about half an hour. He said, "You know, you answered all of my questions capably, but I have a feeling that you don't really believe that homosexuality is as acceptable as you make it sound." I asked him why he would say that. "Because," he said, "in your heart I think you know it's wrong." It was infuriating. I told him I thought being gay was just fine, but that in his heart he thought it was wrong.Peters added more footage of psychiatrists espousing that model along with scenes from the 1965 convention of the East Coast Homophile Organizations. CBS gave final approval to "The Homosexuals" and scheduled it to air in the spring of 1966.
Salant later pulled the episode from the schedule and assigned producer Harry Morgan to re-edit it. According to Wallace, Salant found the piece sensationalistic; however, C. A. Tripp, a psychologist who had put CBS in touch with his patient Larson, claimed that Salant felt the piece was pro-homosexuality. Morgan scrapped all but about 10 minutes of Peters' final cut. CBS felt that the self-accepting gay men made too favorable of an impression, so Morgan edited two of the interviews to make the men seem unhappier...
The first interview subject was a gay man named Lars Larson, who appeared undisguised and who spoke positively about his sexuality. Following his interview, Wallace gave the results of a CBS News poll that found that Americans considered homosexuality more harmful to the United States than adultery, abortion or prostitution, that two-thirds of Americans described their reaction to homosexuality as "disgust, discomfort or fear" and that one in ten described their reaction as "hatred". Just ten percent believed homosexuality was a crime but the majority still believed it should be criminally sanctioned.
Following the poll, another homosexual was interviewed from his psychiatrist's couch with his face obscured by shadow. He described coming out to his family, saying they treated him "like some wounded animal they were going to send to the vet." Following this man was another unobscured subject, identified as "Warren Adkins" but who was in fact Jack Nichols, co-founder of the Washington, D.C. branch of the gay rights group the Mattachine Society. He contrasted the comments of the previous subject, saying that he had come out to his family at age 14 and, far from being treated like a sick animal, they treated him with warmth and understanding.
After remarks from Socarides advocating the disease model of homosexuality, Wallace discussed the legal aspects of homosexuality, noting that England was preparing to de-criminalize homosexual acts. Federal judge James Braxton Craven, Jr., from North Carolina advocated a re-evaluation of United States law, commenting, "Is it not time to redraft a criminal statute first enacted in 1533?" Following footage of Nichols and Mattachine D.C. co-founder Frank Kameny picketing Independence Hall and the State Department, Kameny, under his real name, advocated a re-examination of federal law that placed a blanket ban on known homosexuals receiving security clearances.
Next, Albert Goldman (then an English professor at Columbia University) and openly gay author and playwright Gore Vidal debated homosexuality, with an emphasis on the presence of homosexuals in the creative arts. Goldman asserted that homosexuality "is just one of a number of...things all tending toward the subversion, toward the final erosion, of our cultural values." Vidal, asserting that homosexuality is as natural as heterosexuality, countered by saying "The United States is living out some mad Protestant nineteenth-century dream of human behavior....I think the so-called breaking of the moral fiber of this country is one of the healthiest things that's begun to happen."
Wallace closed with an interview with a homosexual, with a wife and two children, who claimed that the narcissism of gay men made it impossible for two men to form a long-term loving relationship. Wrapping up the hour, Wallace concluded:
The dilemma of the homosexual: told by the medical profession he is sick; by the law that he's a criminal; shunned by employers; rejected by heterosexual society. Incapable of a fulfilling relationship with a woman, or for that matter with a man. At the center of his life he remains anonymous. A displaced person. An outsider.Wallace shrugged it off as just a day's work for a meat puppet:
For his part, anchor Mike Wallace came to regret his participation in the episode. "I should have known better," he said in 1992. Speaking in 1996, Wallace stated, "That is — God help us — what our understanding was of the homosexual lifestyle a mere twenty-five years ago because nobody was out of the closet and because that's what we heard from doctors — that's what Socarides told us, it was a matter of shame." However, Wallace was at the time of broadcast close friends with noted designer James Amster (creator of the landmark Amster Yard courtyard in New York City) and Amster's male long-term companion, men whom Wallace later described as "a wonderful old married couple" and "[b]oth people that [he] admired". Despite this personal knowledge, Wallace relied on the American Psychiatric Association's categorization of homosexuality as a mental illness rather than his own experience in creating the episode. As recently as 1995, Wallace told an interviewer that he believed homosexuals could change their orientation if they really wanted to.
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