Joseph McCarthy is chiefly remembered for his attempts to expel Communists and Soviet Operatives from positions in the U.S. Government. Less well remembered is his attempt to expel homosexuals. Homosexuals, like Communists, were seen as a subversive presence in the 1950’s. In The Lavender Scare, David K. Johnson writes at great length about the way that fear of Communists and fear of homosexuals became part of the same attempt to root insidious, corruptive people out of th

The story of Fernando Rios is, at heart, the story of sexual activity and sexual hypocrisy in the 1950’s. There was a lot of activity. And a lot of hypocrisy. For example, in 2012, when the controversial issue of whether or not birth control should be covered by the Affordable Care Act was being debated, conservative pundit (and donor) Foster Friess weighed in on the controversy, saying, “Back in my days, they used Bayer aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between t

New October 5: Déjà vu When I was researching Out for Queer Blood, I spent weeks reading newspapers from the 1950’s, and then I would come home, watch the news, and have strange feelings of déjà vu. It was because all of the hot button issues in the 1950’s had somehow become the hot button issues sixty years later: voting rights, family structure, Mexican immigration, judicial activism, and the list goes on. For a more extended discussion of the similarities between the 195