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    The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government
    The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government
    The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government
    Audiobook10 hours

    The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government

    Written by David K. Johnson

    Narrated by Timothy Andres Pabon

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    In Cold War America, Senator Joseph McCarthy enjoyed tremendous support in the fight against what he called atheistic communism. But that support stemmed less from his wild charges about communists than his more substantiated charges that "sex perverts" had infiltrated government agencies. Although now remembered as an attack on suspected disloyalty, McCarthyism introduced "moral values" into the American political arsenal. Warning of a spreading homosexual menace, McCarthy and his Republican allies learned how to win votes.

    Winner of three book awards, The Lavender Scare masterfully traces the origins of contemporary sexual politics to Cold War hysteria over national security. Drawing on newly declassified documents and interviews with former government officials, historian David Johnson chronicles how the myth that homosexuals threatened national security determined government policy for decades, ruined thousands of lives, and pushed many to suicide. As Johnson shows, this myth not only outlived McCarthy but, by the 1960s, helped launch a new civil rights struggle.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateSep 10, 2019
    ISBN9781515949138

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    Reviews for The Lavender Scare

    4.5/5

    32 ratings4 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Very good!! I had no idea where the connection between queer and communists came from (today called as neomarxists or sexomarxists by the alt right reactionaries)
    • 5/5
      This is such an important book. I honestly did not know about any of this stuff until a friend recommended it to me. This book was so hard for me to get through, because I was just so angry and upset with how gays were treated. It's one thing that I cannot understand is the obsession with the LGBTQ+ community and their sexual lives. People in that community are just that... people. They are worthy and should never have to deal with any type of discrimination, but here we are. I just can't imagine what people went through during this and how terrifying it must've been having to deal with losing their entire livelihoods based on even so much as a rumor about their sexuality. This is definitely worth the read to get a better understanding of the LGBTQ+ and why gay pride is so important.
    • 5/5
      In The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government, David K. Johnson argues, “In 1950, many politicians, journalists, and citizens thought that homosexuals posed more of a threat to national security than Communists” (pg. 2). Johnson builds upon the framework George Chauncey established in his monograph, Gay New York, often describing a gay community that grew out of the history Chauncey covered. He writes, “By looking beyond McCarthy and behind the ambiguous term ‘security risk,’ this study reveals that a Lavender Scare – a fear that homosexuals posed a threat to national security and needed to be systemically removed from the federal government – permeated 1950s political culture” (pg. 9). Johnson’s history blends an example of political and cultural history to resurrect a seemingly tangential event from the sidelines of history in order to demonstrate its crucial role in 1950s culture.Regarding Deputy Undersecretary for Administration John Peurifoy’s revelation of State Department firings, Johnson writes, “News that the State Department had fired ninety-one homosexuals gave credibility to McCarthy’s vague charges and enhanced his public standing. Though he was involved in neither their removal nor the revelation of their removal, McCarthy was soon given credit for both” (pg. 19). Further, “What made the homosexual issue even more of a liability for the administration was how many Americans began to conflate homosexuals and Communists. The constant pairing of ‘Communists and queers’ led many to see them as indistinguishable threats” (pg. 31). To fight this image, Washington, D.C. “codified for the first time the common-law notion of sodomy – defined as any penetration ‘however slight’ of the mouth or anus of one person with the sexual organs of another” (pg. 58). Johnson writes, “Propaganda about the Miller Sexual Psychopath law continually invoked the dangers posed to children; once passed, however, it was used to further criminalize consensual sex between adult homosexuals – both men and women” (pg. 58). Johnson argues that the Lavender Scare represented a significant pushback by Republicans against the New and Fair Deal.Johnson writes, “By thus expanding the Lavender Scare, enemies of the Roosevelt and Truman administrations thus found a new, more effective way to cast aspersions on the goings-on in Washington. To such conservatives, Moscow ran only barely ahead of Washington as the city they most despised” (pg. 80). The Kinsey Report only added to the cultural battle over sexuality. Johnson writes, “Those who opposed or at least questioned the necessity of the purges would inevitably cite Kinsey to suggest not only the futility but also the danger in trying to effectively quarantine such a large percentage of the population from any work touching on national security” (pg. 88). Johnson concludes, “Though sharpened in the context of the Cold War, both the Red and Lavender Scares were outgrowths of a broader campaign led by members of Congress to halt the expansion of the bureaucracy they had neither the expertise nor the power to control. They were reactions against a major transformation in the role of government and in the city of Washington over the course of the New Deal and World War II” (pg. 97).Beyond this, Johnson writes, “With the Hoey Committee investigation, the Lavender Scare began to move beyond partisan rhetoric to enjoy bipartisan support and become part of standard, government-wide policy. The avid participation of the Democratic members of the committee suggests that the notion that homosexuals in government posed a threat to national security was becoming part of a national consensus” (pg. 117). Furthermore, “To some people the Lavender Scare was a tactic in a political struggle to turn back the New Deal. To others it was a necessary measure to protect national security and counter what they saw as a nation in moral decline. But to gay and lesbian civil servants, it represented a real threat to their economic, social, and psychological well-being” (pg. 149). Finally, and in response to the sources George Chauncey uncovered regarding pre-World War II sexual dynamics, Johnson writes, “By stigmatizing homosexual behavior and labeling anyone with even one such encounter in their past as homosexual, the purges enforced a rigid homosexual/heterosexual divide. They thus facilitated the demise of an older sexual system based on gender identity and encouraged the classification of individuals based on their ‘sexual orientation’” (pg. 162).
    • 4/5
      This book showed how vicious the politics and policies of the U.S. government can be. And it was not that long ago. The only comfort is that the policy excluding homosexuals from federal employment ended. What scares me is how fragile our liberties are.