When the Comstock Act was passed in 1873, the dissemination of any "article of an immoral nature" through the U.S. mail or across state lines became legally prohibited. It remains on the books today forbidding the use of the mails to distribute obscene material. 1.
In the 1950's, the Mattachine Society, the Daughters of Bilitis, and ONE,Inc. developed into national organizations supporting gay liberation by defying the Comstock laws. In 1958, One Magazine, the first gay magazine to reach a wide audience, won a decision from the U.S.Supreme Court to allow it's mailings. Feminist publications addressed lesbian concerns in the 1970's and 1980's, and during the 1980's and 1990's, gay and lesbian publications boldly promoted safer sex practices, countering mainstream admonitions for celibacy. 2.
When homosexuals were discussed in the news prior to the 1960's it was generally in a negative light. In 1964, Life published an article "Homosexuality in America." Although mostly negative, it attempted to explain homosexuality to the mainstream society.
Following the declassification of homosexuality as a mental disorder in 1973, media became more positive in its willingness to discuss issues related to gays and lesbians. In 1979, Time magazine reported "Homosexual publishing is booming, and gays now receive far more sympathetic coverage in the media...At the same time, there is strong reaction against the homosexual rights movement." 3.
SIX POINT STRATEGY
In 1987 homosexual activists, Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen, published an article titled "The Overhauling of Straight America", followed in 1989 by a book titled After the Ball. In these writings Kirk and Madsen laid out a six-point strategy to radically change the way Americans perceived homosexual behavior. 4.
1. Talk about gays and gayness as loudly and often as possible. "almost all behaviors begin to look normal if you are exposed to enough of it at close quarters and among your acquaintances."
2. Portray gays as victims, not aggressive challengers.Tragedies were turned into opportunities to promote the homosexual agenda by portraying anyone who opposed it as a murderer or sympathetic to murder.
3. Give homosexual protectors a 'just cause'. "A media campaign that casts gays as society's victims and encourages straights to be their protectors must make it easier for those who respond to assert and explain their perspectives."
4.Make gays look good. Portray homosexuals sympathetically in the media.
5. Make the victimizers look bad. "We intend to make the anti-gays look so nasty that average Americans will want to dis-associate themselves from such types."
6. Solicit funds.Get corporate America and major foundations to financially support the homosexual cause.
Kirk and Madsen knew that they would be required to wage a war of propaganda. Opponents were portrayed and denounced as ugly caricatures. Even thoughtful and heartfelt concerns for family well-being were vilified as hate-mongering, bigotry or homophobia.
In 1989, The San Francisco Examiner ran a report entitled "Gay in America" that ran for 16 days. Subsequently, newspapers across the country ran articles, often 2 or 3 pages in length, explaining gay issues to the local public. 5.
TARGETING TELEVISION 6.
Three years after the Stonewall Riots representation on prime time TV became a critical symbolic target. Homosexual activists sought to influence the way they were portrayed. They had an important advantage. They had 'agents in place'. A substantial number of gay people, some in high positions, worked in the TV industry who were not open about their lifestyle. These 'agents' were able to leak information to activists about upcoming episodes in which gays were depicted negatively.
Ron Gold, the media director of the Gay Activist Alliance, wrote to all three networks requesting meetings. Before the meeting with ABC, an agent had supplied information about an upcoming episode of Marcus Welby, MD where Welby advised a homosexual who was both a husband and a father to suppress his homosexual desires. The meeting with ABC was confrontational and hostile. A meeting with 25 angry activists was not the kind of meeting that network executives preferred to have. Although the objectionable episode aired a few days later, the meeting did impact later decisions. Gay activists were invited by ABC executives to comment on any scripts dealing with homosexuality.
CHILD MOLESTATION EPISODE 7.
A story line that was unacceptable to gays was an episode that linked homosexuality to child molestation, a relationship that activists wanted to eliminate in the media. When Ron Gold lost his temper with ABC executives, communications broke down. When the Gay Activist Alliance experienced disagreements, Gold split from the group to form the National Gay Task Force(NGTF), which developed as a gay rights umbrella organization around the country.
NGTF turned the episode related to child molestation to a gay media activist in Boston, Loretta Lotman, who launched a national campaign against the Welby show, galvanizing the gay community. Grassroots groups applied pressure on local ABC affiliates. Threats were included as strategies for success. When Lotman called the Boston ABC affiliate, WCVB, she warned that "if something were not done about the program, the station would be 'hit with a protest the likes of which you've never seen before'". Advertisers were pressured to withdraw support.
NGTF pressured the American Psychiatric Association to publicly condemn the offensive Welby episode. They also succeeded in having the National Education Association release a report objecting to the show's portrayal of homosexuals as sterotypes.
In response to this aggressive campaign, ABC issued a statement defending the episode. However, the producers made changes to minmize offenses.
COAST TO COAST SURVEILLANCE 8.
NGTF leaders presented themselves as a 'resource' for information about homosexuality rather than a pressure group. However the possibility of a protest was never out of the question. Between 1974 and 1977, seven 'zaps' - as the activists called their protests - occurred. Gays working in TV continued their surveillance of the industry. The NGTF agenda for network programming included: "increased visibility, elimination of stereotypes, continuing gay and lesbian characters, and gay couples. Gays also insisted on a 'moratorium on negative portrayals'...Gays thus became an ongoing political presence in network television." 8.
The Gay Media Task Force, run by Dr. Newton Deiter, was formed in Los Angeles at the encouragement of NGTF to hold the media accountable on both sides of the country. In the 70's, more and more gay characters appeared on prime-time TV. One critic labeled 1976 as "the year of the gay" because gay characters appeared in "at least seven situation comedies and in several television movies." These shows were aimed at public education. "In virtually every one the heterosexual characters learn to accept gay people and their lifestyles."
MOVING TOWARD THE NEW MILLENIUM
Beginning in the mid 1990's, Ellen, Friends, The Drew Carey Show, Will and Grace, and Sex and the City introduced characters with implied or actural gay behaviors and issues. In the new millenium, Oprah Winfrey embraced gay and lesbian concerns on her popular daily show. Lesbians who had left their husbands to marry their lovers were interviewed, gay men were guests invited to share their life stories, and a week was devoted to the life changes of trans-gendered people. At one point Oprah turned to the television audience and said, "I think this is soooo interesting. Don't you think this is interesting?" Soon Ellen Degeneres, a popular lesbian, became host to a late afternoon talk show. Gay activists had become institutionalized in network TV.
REFERENCES
1. Rierson, Sandra. "Comstock Act(1873). http://www.enotes.com/major-acts-congrsss/comstock-act. 2/1/2010.
2.The Gay Almanac. Compiled by the National Museum & Archive of Lesbian and Gay History. New York: Berkley Books. 1996:281.
3. Leo,
4. Sears, Alan & Craig Osten. The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today. Nashville, TN:B&H Publishing. 2003:17-28.
5. The Gay Almanac: 286-287.
6. Montgomery, Kathryn C. Target:Prime Time -Advocacy Groups and the Struggle Over Entertainment Television. New York: Oxford University Press. 1989:Chap. 5.
7. Ibid.:81-83
8. Ibid:87-94.
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