The Lavender Scare refers to the fear and persecution of homosexual

Homosexuality

Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...

s in the 1950s in the United States, which paralleled the anti-communist

Anti-communism

Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...

 campaign known as McCarthyism

McCarthyism

McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by...

.

Because the psychiatric community regarded homosexuality as a mental illness, gay men and lesbian

Lesbian

Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...

s were considered susceptible to blackmail

Blackmail

In common usage, blackmail is a crime involving threats to reveal substantially true or false information about a person to the public, a family member, or associates unless a demand is met. It may be defined as coercion involving threats of physical harm, threat of criminal prosecution, or threats...

, thus constituting a security risk. U.S. government officials assumed that communist

Communism

Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...

s would blackmail homosexual employees of the federal government who would provide them classified information rather than risk exposure.

In 1950, the same year that Senator Joseph McCarthy

Joseph McCarthy

Joseph Raymond "Joe" McCarthy was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957...

 claimed 205 communists were working in the State Department

United States Department of State

The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries...

, Undersecretary

Undersecretary

An under secretary is an executive government official in many countries, frequently a career public servant, who typically acts as a senior administrator or second-in-command to a politically-appointed Cabinet Minister or other government official...

 of State John Puerifoy said the State Department had allowed 91 homosexuals to resign.

McCarthy hired Roy Cohn

Roy Cohn

Roy Marcus Cohn was an American attorney who became famous during Senator Joseph McCarthy's investigations into Communist activity in the United States during the Second Red Scare. Cohn gained special prominence during the Army–McCarthy hearings. He was also an important member of the U.S...

 — himself a closeted

Closeted

Closeted and in the closet are metaphors used to describe lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning and intersex people who have not disclosed their sexual orientation or gender identity and aspects thereof, including sexual identity and sexual behavior.-Background:In late 20th...

 homosexual — as chief counsel of his Congressional subcommittee. Together, McCarthy and Cohn were responsible for the firing of scores of gay men from government employment, and strong-armed many opponents into silence using rumors of their homosexuality.

The term for this persecution was popularized by David K. Johnson's study of this anti-homosexual campaign, The Lavender Scare, which drew its title from the term "lavender lads," used repeatedly by Sen. Everett Dirksen

Everett Dirksen

Everett McKinley Dirksen was an American politician of the Republican Party. He represented Illinois in the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate...

 as a synonym for homosexuals. In 1952 he said that a Republican victory in the November elections would mean the removal of "the lavender lads" from the State Department. The phrase was also used by Confidential

Confidential (magazine)

Confidential was a periodical published quarterly from December 1952 to August 1953, and then bi-monthly until 1978. It was founded by Robert Harrison and is considered a pioneer in scandal, gossip, and exposé journalism. Newsweek said it featured "sin and sex with a seasoning of right wing...

magazine, a periodical known for gossiping about the sexuality of politicians and prominent Hollywood stars.

A feature-length documentary film called The Lavender Scare, based on Johnson's book, is in production.

See also

• Advise and Consent
  Advise and Consent
  Advise and Consent is a 1959 political novel by Allen Drury that explores the United States Senate confirmation of controversial Secretary of State nominee Robert Leffingwell who is a former member of the Communist Party...
  
  
• Arthur H. Vandenberg, Jr.
  Arthur H. Vandenberg, Jr.
  Arthur Hendrick Vandenberg, Jr. was a Republican government official from Michigan. He worked for many years on the staff of his father, Arthur H. Vandenberg , who served in the U.S. Senate from 1928 to 1951...
  
  
• Boise homosexuality scandal
  Boise homosexuality scandal
  The Boise homosexuality scandal refers to a sweeping investigation of a supposed "homosexual underground" in Boise, Idaho that started in 1955. Beginning with the arrest of three men in October 1955, the investigation broadened to encompass allegations that over 100 young men and teenage boys had...
  
  
• Carmel Offie
  Carmel Offie
  Carmel Offie worked for the U.S. State Department from the mid 1930s until he joined the Central Intelligence Agency CIA in 1947...
  
  
• Charles W. Thayer
  Charles W. Thayer
  Charles W. Thayer was an American diplomat and author. He was an expert on Soviet-American relations and headed the Voice of America.-Early years:...
  
  
• Civil Service Reform Act of 1978
  Civil Service Reform Act of 1978
  The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, , reformed the civil service of the United States federal government.The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 abolished the U.S...
  
  
• Executive Order 10450
  Executive Order 10450
  President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued Executive Order 10450 in April 1953, effective May 27, 1953. It revoked Truman's 1947 Executive Order 9835 and dismantled its Loyalty Review Board...
  
  
• Executive Order 11478
  Executive Order 11478
  Executive Order 11478, signed by U.S. President Richard M. Nixon on August 8, 1969, prohibited discrimination in the competitive service of the federal civilian workforce on certain grounds...
  
  
• Executive Order 13087
  Executive Order 13087
  Executive Order 13087 was signed by U.S. President Bill Clinton on May 28, 1998, amending Executive Order 11478 to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation in the competitive service of the federal civilian workforce. The order also applies to employees of the government of the District...
  
  
• Florida Legislative Investigation Committee
  Florida Legislative Investigation Committee
  The Florida Legislative Investigation Committee was established by the Florida Legislature in 1956, during the era of the Second Red Scare and the Lavender Scare...
  
  
• Frank Kameny
• Fruit machine (homosexuality test)
• Homosexuality and Citizenship in Florida
  Homosexuality and Citizenship in Florida
  Homosexuality and Citizenship in Florida, also known as the Purple Pamphlet, was published in January 1964 by the Florida Legislative Investigation Committee of the Florida legislature led by Senator Charley Johns. The booklet contained several pornographic images and a glossary of terminology used...
  
  
• John W. Hanes, Jr.
  John W. Hanes, Jr.
  John W. Hanes, Jr. was a U.S. civil servant.Hanes was born in New York City and graduated from Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts in 1943. His father was an New York financier. Hanes served in the U.S. Army from 1943 to 1946 and then worked in the Office of High Commissioner for Germany for 3...
  
  
• Joseph Alsop
  Joseph Alsop
  Joseph Wright Alsop V was an American journalist and syndicated newspaper columnist from the 1930s through the 1970s.-Early years:...
  
  
• Martin and Mitchell Defection
  Martin and Mitchell Defection
  The Martin and Mitchell Defection occurred in September 1960 when two National Security Agency cryptologists, William Hamilton Martin and Bernon F. Mitchell, defected to the Soviet Union...
  
  
• Samuel Reber
  Samuel Reber
  Samuel Reber was a diplomat who spent 27 years in the Foreign Service of the United States, including several years with the Allied High Commission for Germany. Threats by Senator Joseph McCarthy to reveal a homosexual incident in his past forced him to resign quietly from the State Department in...
  
  
• Seduction of the Innocent
  Seduction of the Innocent
  Seduction of the Innocent is a book by German-American psychiatrist Fredric Wertham, published in 1954, that warned that comic books were a negative form of popular literature and a serious cause of juvenile delinquency. The book was a minor bestseller that created alarm in parents and galvanized...
  
  
• Sexual orientation and the United States military
• Walter Jenkins
  Walter Jenkins
  Walter Wilson Jenkins was an American political figure and longtime top aide to U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson. Jenkins' career ended after a sex scandal was reported weeks before the 1964 presidential election, when Jenkins was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct with another man in a...
  
  

Sources

• Robert D. Dean, Imperial Brotherhood: Gender and the Making of Cold War Foreign Policy (University of Massachusetts Press, 2003), ISBN 9781558494145
• David K. Johnson, The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government (University of Chicago Press, 2004), ISBN 0226401901

External links

• Longernecker v. Higley, December 22, 1955
• The Lavender Scare - official website for documentary film