The Homosexuals (1967)

This 1967 CBS documentary on homosexuality (hosted by a young Mike Wallace) would be hysterical if it weren't so sad. The inclusion of Charles Socarides (1922-2005) was interesting. He was one of the first pseudo-scientists who suggested "reparative therapy" for gay people, suggesting that homosexuality wasn't a moral issue after all, but was rather a psychiatric condition in need of treatment. He was also the founder of the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH). Given the time period, I imagine that this approach seemed more reasonable than that of the criminal justice system.

The fascinating part of his story was the transformation of his thought processes from that of a scientist to that of a zealot. Even up until 2004, Socarides held fast to his beliefs that homosexuality was an illness resulting from an overbearing mother and a distant or absent father, even when the vast majority of reputable research indicated otherwise. He went so far as to misrepresent intentionally the position of the American Psychoanalytic Association, citing a 1968 position paper expressing general agreement with his theories about homosexuality, and ignoring a 1990 revised position paper that strenuously contradicted them. (This kind of biased cherrypicking is verboten in the literature review process.) In turn, NARTH was (and still is) identified widely as a disreputable, biased, and non-evidence-based organization.

It's interesting to note that Richard Socarides, the son of this discredited psychiatrist, is an openly gay man who served as President Clinton's advisor on GLBT issues (among other high-profile positions in government and in business).

I was also struck by the first man interviewed in the piece. His reasonable explanations and confident assertion of the inherent equality of gay people would be relevant even today. He was ahead of his time, to be sure. I hope he's still around to see how right he was, and how the opinions and mores of the country are finally starting to turn in his direction.

This documentary, produced just three years before I was born, is a graphic reminder of how far we've come in just my almost-forty years. It's also a reminder of how important it is to continue fighting for equal civil and human rights for GLBT people.


Addendum:


Thanks to an eagle-eyed Towleroad commeter, the first man interviewed in the report (whom I mentioned above) has been identified as Jack Nichols (his real name). From Wikipedia:

Nichols founded the Mattachine Society of Washington in 1961, and the Mattachine Society of Florida in 1965. The Mattachine Society of Washington was independent of the national Mattachine Society, with had formally disbanded a few months earlier.

Beginning in 1963, he chaired the Mattachine Society of Washington's Committee on Religious Concerns, which later developed into the Washington Area Council on Religion and the Homosexual. This organization was pioneering in forging links between the gay rights movement and the National Council of Churches.

Nichols led the first gay rights march on the White House, in April 1965, and participated in the Annual Reminder pickets at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, held each July 4 from 1965 to 1969. He also successfully lobbied the American Psychiatric Association to rescind its definition of homosexuality as a form of mental illness.

In 1969, after moving to New York City, Nichols and his partner Lige Clarke founded GAY, the first weekly newspaper for gay people in the US distributed on newsstands.

From February 1997, Nichols was Senior Editor at GayToday.com, an online newsmagazine. He died on May 2, 2005, of complications from cancer.

I'm glad he lived through the 80's and got to see the tide turning in the right direction.