In this day and age, we see a lot of really nasty anti-gay and anti-equality sentiments, the sort of rhetoric that rattles us to our very core. What might be worse – or, at least, equally as disturbing – is what was reported on CBS in March of 1967.
CBS Reports: The Homosexuals was a project nearly two years in the making, and both researched and hosted by 60 Minutes mainstay Mike Wallace. For 45+ minutes, Wallace follows the mentality of the time period, providing his audience with some of the most disturbing anti-homosexual propaganda you might ever see. This isn’t news, as much as it’s ignorance masked to behave as news, although ignorance surrounding homosexuality was the norm in 1967, and Wallace later admitted his ignorance and regretted his involvement in its creation.
Wallace includes some information about public attitudes toward homosexuality that may curdle your blood: during the time, homosexuality was considered more harmful to society than adultery, abortion, and prostitution combined. He indicated that most folks found it to be both “disturbing and embarrassing,” with two-thirds of people surveyed stating that it brought about feelings of disgust, discomfort, and fear. Another ten percent felt “hatred” toward homosexuals. And the majority of the population still believed – around the beginning of 1967 – that homosexual conduct should be punished. When this news show was produced, only Illinois had dropped its sodomy laws from the books. Every other state – including Massachusetts! – still prosecuted homosexuals for their “behavior.”
Before getting into the full extent of his reporting, Wallace reminds us that the average homosexual is promiscuous and incapable of loving relationships. When he says “love life,” you can hear his fingers making the air quotes, and see those quotes on the script or cue card he is reading. It actually sends shivers down your spine. When he mentions “the homosexual,” you get the feeling he is referring to us as an animal species.
This is one of those jaw-dropping pieces that everyone should stop and watch. It not only explains the general beliefs about homosexuality during a time when many of us either weren’t born or hadn’t come out yet, but indicates that the mindset of many anti-gay and anti-equality folks has yet to evolve. You’ll also get a rather candid view of a graduate course taught by Dr. Charles Socarides, a prominent New York psychiatrist who believed homosexuality could be cured, and a disturbing outline of the Boise Homosexuality Scandal where a McCarthy-esque quest to find and prosecute homosexuals in the capital city of Idaho led to a number of gay men spending up to 15 years in prison, and one man going there for the rest of his life.
This is worth the 45 minutes, if only to realize how good we actually have it now, compared to how it was before.
(The quality of the film is a bit grainy and choppy, but 99.9% is of an acceptable quality.)
Thank you for this vid! I’ve been looking for it for ages! Do you know where I can download it to keep it?
By: Charles on 13 December 2009
at 08:22
You can download it from here if you use Firefox with an add-on like “DownloadHelper”. It’s about 250MB.
Does anyone have the unedited version???
By: Mark on 12 February 2010
at 07:07
I wrote the Wikipedia article on this episode (and also the Boise scandal) and have also been looking for it forever. I think this is edited. Sources say that there was a second “happy homosexual” interviewed under the name “Lars Larson”. His interview was altered to make him seem less self-accepting and he withdrew his release.
By: Otto4711 on 9 February 2010
at 21:29
To Otto
How come you didn’t identify the Queen in the Boise scandal, or the investigator Bill Goodman. Surely enough time has passed, and we might learn something byn knowing who they were. After all, Mark Rome had been identified. It would be useful to profile these folks. I understand that the Queen was actually one of the prominent men behind the persecution.
By: Don Carpenter on 13 February 2010
at 12:47
I didn’t identify The Queen or Bill Goodman because I was unable to locate a source in which they were identified.
By: Otto4711 on 25 February 2010
at 16:35
I’d heard about this for years, but actually seeing the evil thing is quite an experience. I wanted to kiss Gore Vidal and the brave activist at the beginning for being voices of sanity. Mike Wallace and all the authority figures seem so certain of their absolute rightness. I wonder how many of them were secretly gay.
And I shouldn’t be surprised that the horrible Albert Goldman – who wrote the hysterically bigoted biographies trashing John Lennon and Elvis – is a raving homophobe here. He was still bitterly antigay and racist 20 years later when he wrote his Lennon book.
Thanks for posting this.
By: Mike Russell on 12 February 2010
at 10:50
The name “Warren Adkins” (the first homosexual interviewed in the video) was a pseudonym adopted by Jack Nichols to avoid jeopardizing his father’s pending retirement from the FBI. The morning after the CBS broadcast, Nichols was fired from his job as a result. Despite the fake name, Nichols was the only “homosexual” who showed his face. All the rest were hiding in the shadows. Frank Kameny had coached Nichols on how to answer the questions. (See book by J. Louis Campbell, “Jack Nichols, Gay Pioneer: ‘Have You Heard My Message?’” Routledge, 2006, p. xv, 72, 99-101 (See my blog post ‘CBS Reports: The Homosexuals’ 1967 (2/14/10) for a transcript of the New York Times review of the CBS program)
By: Thomas Kraemer on 17 February 2010
at 12:34
I don’t believe it’s correct that Nichols was the only homosexual to show his face. Sources describe the physical appearance on the broadcast of Lars Larson, indicating that he wasn’t filmed in shadow. And of course Hal Call was interviewed full-face. Although little of the footage was used there are shots of a dinner party in which the participants’ faces are seen.
By: Otto4711 on 25 February 2010
at 16:53
Thanks for posting this. I had heard about it but never seen it. Wallace interviewed my dad (at the time the Dean of the Episcopal cathedral in Boise) in our home but he must not have gotten anything useful because it’s not in the program. I graduated from Boise HS in 1963 and have a sense of being vaguely aware of fallout from the scandal but think that, in general, it had largely passed by then.
By: spof22 on 11 April 2012
at 14:16