Senator Joseph McCarthy and Homophobia

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In 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy’s incendiary allegations against the State Department led to a government purging that would eventually cost over a thousand people their jobs. These particular individuals, however, were not dismissed because of any direct ties that they had to the Communist Party, but instead because of their sexual orientation. McCarthy’s original accusations concerning the presence of over 200 Communists working in the government—specifically the State Department—included two allegations that specifically referenced homosexuality, suggesting that homosexuality was itself a danger to the security of the United States. Even as McCarthy—cognizant of growing pressure from his colleagues for him to produce evidence of his claims—reduced his original allegations from 205 card-carrying communists to 57 “bad risks” (Johnson 2004), the public conception of the threat of homosexuality in the government persisted and ultimately materialized into the Lavender Scare, a mass hysteria that paralleled and was concurrent with the Red Scare. Capitol Hill, with the nation alongside it, was quickly overtaken by this Lavender Tide. Soon, fear of a homosexual presence in the government surpassed even fears of communism. Unlike its Red counterpart, however, the Lavender Scare is virtually unknown to the general public even though it eventually exceeded the Red Scare in scope. The Orientalizing rhetoric and propaganda directed at homosexuals during the Lavender Scare, however, reveals a notion that existed during the Lavender Scare of homosexuals as un-American. This “othering” of gays and lesbians combined with the period’s strong American Exceptionalism suggests a motive behind the strong homophobic reaction of this period, ...

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