Posted on 05/21/2014 11:09:40 AM PDT by reaganaut1
WASHINGTON — Days after President Lyndon B. Johnson’s election to his first full term, an administration official asked a subordinate to explain the policy on firing gays. In particular, he wondered whether someone with a history of gay liaisons could, through years of marriage, be “rehabilitated” into a trustworthy civil servant.
The response came quickly, and in language that would be shocking by today’s standards. Technically, rehabilitated gays could keep their jobs. But John W. Steele, a staff member of the Civil Service Commission, which handled personnel matters for the government, said that seldom happened.
“Some feel that ‘once a homo, always a homo,’ ” Mr. Steele wrote. He added, “Our tendency to ‘lean over backwards’ to rule against a homosexual is simply a manifestation of the revulsion which homosexuality inspires in the normal person.”
It was November 1964. Four months earlier, the president had signed the landmark Civil Rights Act banning discrimination on the basis of race, religion, sex and national origin. The policies laid out in Mr. Steele’s memo would continue for more than another decade.
It is well known that America’s laws and policies, in the name of morality and national security, barred gays from the federal work force for much of the previous century. But documents newly obtained by a gay-rights group offer new details about the views that drove the government’s sometimes obsessive effort to identify and fire gays in government jobs.
Memos like Mr. Steele’s, and formerly classified documents on an F.B.I. program called Sex Deviate, provide stark evidence of how for decades the government considered gay men and women to be immoral, and not to be trusted with even the most mundane bureaucratic tasks.
“These memorandums were not meant for the outside world to see,” said Charles Francis, a gay-rights advocate
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
A world where people get fired for even obliquely disapproving of homosexuality (see Brendan Eich) is not an improvement.
And Chelsie Manning has proven that gays are stable individuals who pose no security risk.
The Party of Tolerance and Compassion.
Neither were public displays of homosexual affection (PDHA), Charles.
Of course they did...it was well recognized that,among other things,they were security risks.
They ARE immoral. Always have been and always will be. God’s Word declares them to be. We can either obey God or obey man. With this depravity, there is no compromise. It’s pretty much the culminating manifestation of a spiritually insane culture.
The article seems to skip over the pertinent fact that homos had always been a prime target for foreign espionage, because they were so easy to compromise. When you live your life with such a big secret, you’ll be willing to do nearly anything to keep it a secret.
Even adulterers were not as easy to turn as homosexuals. Some adulterers would rather choose to come clean on their own and face the consequences. Not many homos would have seen that as an option, at that time.
Oh, just like Moses, Jesus, and Paul?
Couldn't have said it better myself. But watch out; normal is the new "N" word. Calling ourselves normal infers that "others" are NOT, and is therefore verboten.
And today we are expected to "bend over forward" to accommodate them.
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