Word: gayness
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Sweet Adeline in 1977 gives us a nostalgic look at 1929, the show itself attempted to give audiences of 1929 a look at a bygone era. The work was originally billed as "a musical romance of the Gay Nineties," and its story began in 1898. In the version at Brandeis, director Gile has omitted a military scene at San Juan Hill in Cuba, though the Spanish-American War is still invoked; and he has, at show's end, eliminated all reference to the celebrated murder of architect Stanford White by Harry K. Thaw only a few feet away. But enough...
...many ways the Bill of Rights was designed to protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority. But no clause in the U.S. Constitution guarantees any special safeguards to persons attracted to their own sex; gays are usually dependent entirely on protection supplied by legislatures or granted by changes in public mores. Even the embattled Equal Rights Amendment, if approved, would protect only against discrimination by sex, not sexual preference. And as last week's Miami referendum demonstrates, gaining popular approval for gay-rights-equality laws promises to be a long, perhaps impossible fight...
...society any more justified in discriminating against gays than it is in showing bigotry toward blacks? After all, some psychologists believe a man has no more control over his sexual preferences than a black has choice of his skin color. And gays, notes Attorney Walter Barnett in his book Sexual Freedom and the Constitution, "are human beings who suffer from their niggerdom as much as any black man ever did, even more so." With the rise of gay militancy, at least 38 communities (but no states) have adopted laws prohibiting discrimination in jobs or housing or public accommodations. A total...
...major problem with the theory that being gay is like being black is that most psychologists believe homosexuality is conditioned, not congenital. The prominence of gay "role models" like public school teachers could arguably influence youth to experiment with homosexual practices or give vent to repressed gay tendencies...
...major legislative breakthrough for gay rights also seems unlikely. Whenever the matter is brought to a well-publicized popular vote, it usually is defeated. Legislative easing of sodomy statutes has invariably been camouflaged as part of overall criminal-code reform; when the topic has been discussed on its own, so-called antideviancy laws have been retained or even strengthened. Ironically, those statutes are usually worded to prohibit "deviant" acts (such as fellatio and cunnilingus) by heterosexuals as well, even though various sex surveys show that perhaps 80% of all U.S. adults have indulged in at least one of these practices...