Which is worse, the FBI smear campaign or the Young Socialist Alliance gay ban?
I have to wonder if this didn’t backfire a bit, with all of the closeted gays showing up for the meetings and discovering socialism.
Well, the YSA did lift the gay ban, no?
Both stink, but it’s kind of damn amazing that you wouldn’t know which is worse…
And slow clap to Reason…
Every day it seems I learn something new that shows how little distinguishes the US security apparatus from the Stasi.
ATTENTION GAY SET! you are now welcome to be socialists! Please pass on the same message to the HORSEY SET, the NOW GENERATION, and any bridge clubs you might be aware of.
You beat me to the comment, although I’m surprised the YSA would have such a policy given…you know…socialism and all. What saddens me about this and similar smear campaigns operated in and by democratically-elected governments is that the social pendulum can swing much more quickly than it can be manipulated back to center. But then, I was just reading a blurb about Minnesota librarian Michael McConnell who sued Hennepin County in 1970 after his marriage license application (to marry his partner Jack) was rejected. The University of Minnesota where he worked heard about this suit and then fired him, which McConnell then sued for reinstatement. The case made it to the Eighth Circuit Court who then found for the University because the case regarded “the right to pursue an activist role in implementing [Mr. McConnell’s] unconventional ideas concerning the societal status to be accorded homosexuals, and, thereby, to force tacit approval of this socially repugnant concept upon his employer.”
America, fuck yeah.
The outfits?
I was a relatively unsophisticated college kid at a BIG New England land grant university at that time. Got exposed to all manner of things that had never before been on my scope – this new “gay” theme for one. Took me a while to figure out that the word wasn’t being used with its old-timey connotations. Stuff like this tricksy FBI thing would have seemed like a pretty funny combination until I got it. Then again, I never heard anyone say that socialists couldn’t be a festive bunch.
Some part of me still wishes “the gays” had appropriated another descriptive term. It was a great word…and they just TOOK it!! Damn them all.
That said, I’ll bet the FBI is still confused.
Well, they did lift it in1971, so not long after the initially take off of the modern gay rights movement… they were kind of ahead of the curve on that, no? Considering there is still an active attempt to ban gay marriage by some states and still an active movement to deny gay rights from many quarters of the establishment right now… So there is that. I’m not sure what your point is here actually?
Also, I’ll point out that this was the same year that COINTELPRO was terminated, not long after a stash of papers was liberated from an FBI office by activists, I think it was this same year (1971):
Which is what the whole damn article is about, duh… sorry. 
The Outfit totally weren’t a thing, then. That nice Mr Hoover said so.
So the Gay Ban is then
I’m mystified by the note that fliers should be duplicated on “commercially obtained” paper. As opposed to what? Government-issue? Roll your own?
As opposed to fbi letterhead?
Signed,
Not the FBI
The FBI used to be very insensitive, as opposed to modern times, where they are merely very insensitive,
I recall (from 20, 25 years ago) that RCP USA and/or CPUSA took an official stance against male homosexuality, calling it a bourgeois self-indulgence or some such.
Now they’re probably trying to keep people from joining the Log Cabin Republicans by insinuating that being gay is TOTALLY SOCIALIST.
