Beginning in the late 1940s and continuing through the 1960s, thousands of gay employees were fired or forced to resign from the federal workforce because of their sexuality. Dubbed the Lavender Scare, this wave of repression was also bound up with anti-Communism and fueled by the power of congressional investigation. On December 15, 1950, the Hoey Committee released a report: Employment of Homosexuals and Other Sex Perverts in Government, Interim Report…, 81st Congress, 2nd Session, Senate Document 241. This report concluded that homosexuals were “unsuitable for employment in the Federal Government” and constituted “security risks in positions of public trust.” Dubbed an “interim report,” it was in fact the committee’s final word on the subject and served as the foundation for the federal government’s exclusion of gay people for years to come.
From: Adkins, Judith. “These People Are Frightened to Death: Congressional Investigations and the Lavender Scare.” Prologue-Quarterly of the National Archives and Records Administration 48.2 (2016): 6-20. Read the full article…
