Many assumptions about Communists mirrored common beliefs about homosexuals. Both were thought to be morally weak or psychologically disturbed, both were seen as godless, both purportedly undermined the traditional family, both were assumed to recruit, and both were shadowy figures with a secret subculture. This association meant that as Communists were being targeted so were queer people. The witch hunts during this time period that sought to out LGBTQ+ people are collectivly referred to as The Lavender Scare. The Lavender Scare is described in this piece by Judith Adkins for the National Archives and Records Administration.
On February 9, 1950 Senator Joseph McCarthy waved a piece of paper in the air as he told a gathered crowd at the Ohio County Women’s Republican Club that he had a list of 205 subversives—communists—working in the State Department. The United States and the Soviet Union were locked in the Cold War and the House Un-American Activities Committee began investigating suspected communists in the late 1940s. A second Red Scare descended upon the country, and any individual whose beliefs or lifestyle contradicted the carefully curated idea of American values was suspect. . . .
[T]he Investigations Subcommittee of the Senate’s Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments conducted a second investigation. Led by Senator Clyde Hoey and known as the Hoey Committee, they questioned all branches of the military plus 53 civilian departments and agencies, gathered data from law enforcement and judicial authorities, and sought out expert psychiatric experts “to ascertain whether homosexuals could be detected through psychiatric examination, whether and how they could be cured, whether they lacked the emotional stability necessary for government service, whether they tended to seduce younger men and women, and whether it would be helpful to have psychiatrists on personnel boards charged with identifying homosexuals.”
On December 15, 1950 the Hoey committee released a report entitled, “Employment of Homosexuals and other Sex perverts in Government.” It concluded: “There is no place in the United States Government for persons who . . . bring disrepute to the Federal service by infamous or scandalous personal conduct. . . . It is in the opinion of this subcommittee that those who engage in acts of homosexuality and other perverted activities are unsuitable for employment in the Federal Government. This conclusion is based upon the fact that persons who indulge in such degraded activity are committing not only illegal and immoral acts, but they also constitute security risks in positions of public trust”. . . . [T]he report “selectively used evidence that the committee had gathered, largely ignoring, for example, the complexities raised by medical authorities. The report also dismissed the hesitations, qualifying statements, and more tolerant attitudes voiced by a minority of agency officials.” The federal government began firing gay employees or forcing them to resign because of their sexuality in the late 1940s. This report legitimized those thoughts and practices.
The Hoey committee report was widely promulgated and highly influential. It shaped government agency security manuals for years to come. It was sent abroad to U.S. embassies and to foreign intelligence agencies. The report carried the authority of Congress and so was taken as official proof that gay people did indeed threaten national security. The U.S. government and even foreign governments repeatedly quoted it to justify discrimination.
Most significantly, the 1950 congressional investigations and the Hoey committee’s final report helped institutionalize discrimination by laying the groundwork for President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s 1953 Executive Order #10450, “Security Requirements for Government Employment.” Stating “the interests of the national security require that all persons privileged to be employed in the departments and agencies of the Government, shall be reliable, trustworthy, of good conduct and character, and of complete and unswerving loyalty to the United States . . .”, Eisenhower decreed that an individual could be prohibited from federal employment based on, “Any criminal, infamous, dishonest, immoral, or notoriously disgraceful conduct, habitual use of intoxicants to excess, drug addiction, sexual perversion . . .”. With the stroke of a pen, the President effectively banned gay men and lesbians from all jobs in the U.S. government—the country’s largest employer.
Citation: Judith Adkins, “These People Are Frightened to Death: Congressional Investigations and the Lavender Scare,” The United States National Archives and Records Administration, Prologue Magazine, Summer 2016, Vol. 48, No. 2.