Enter gay people, fashionably — and disastrously — on time for once. Progressive scientists no sooner discovered “homosexuality” as a distinct category, than the more eugenically minded among them categorized it as “psychopathic.” And so began the myth of the incomplete homosexual, limp wrist and all, ill-equipped to represent America in any way. As detailed by historian Allan Bérubé, in Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women During World War Two (1990), the US Army weeded out gay people based on standards established in 1921 that listed “sexual psychopathy” as one of many “biologically based psychiatric conditions that, through heredity, bad habits, or injury, caused a person to lose the ability to adjust to civilized society.” Military psychiatrists “examined patients’ physiques, analyzed their urine, explored family backgrounds for hereditary evidence or developmental problems, [and] applied a battery of psychological tests.” According to this quack science, homosexuality was inferior and staunchly unpatriotic.
In this environment, gay people couldn’t catch a break. If they didn’t pass for straight, they were liable, in the more extreme instances, to be locked up in institutions and shipped off to be castrated. Sterilization was even considered a benign social-management strategy. As the Human Betterment Foundation put it in 1934, “Sterilization is not a punishment but a protection. It carries no stigma or humiliation. It is a humane measure designed to meet the best interest of all concerned, and for this purpose there is no known measure that can take its place.” There is now. The least conservative opponents of same-sex marriage make allowances for civil unions, which serve the same moral purpose as sterilization did for eugenicists. Civil unions, by creating a separate category for gay people, one that does not sanction their reproduction of children but merely recognizes their rights, have replaced eugenics as a means to keep homosexuals — the “unfit” — away from marriage.
ORDERING MINDS: The term "homosexual" was contrived at a time when scientists were intent on classifying all "mental conditions", as in the 1913 guide charting types of "juvenile mental defectives" |
But in American culture, marriage has also been used to police gay people. At the height of the eugenics movement, the overall fear wasn’t that gay people would procreate, since they were predominantly attracted to the same sex, but that they would potentially destroy other people’s marriages by enticing married people into homosexuality. Still, there were some who seemed intent on making babies with straight people and contributing their dirty genes to the general pool, and they had to be monitored. In 1935, eugenic gynecologist Dr. Robert L. Dickinson conducted a study through the Committee for the Study of Sex Variants that aimed to identify “sexual maladjustment” in the population and stem its pollution of society. In 1936, eugenic psychologist Lewis M. Terman administered a personality test to gauge how masculine and feminine people were in order to determine their “fitness” for marriage.It was also during this period that eugenicists redoubled their efforts to ensure that the “fittest” marriages provided the most morally proper and socially propitious environments in which to raise a family. Here, in what was called “positive eugenics,” — a clever linguistic spin that might have benefited the Third Reich — lie the most striking parallels between old-fashioned eugenics and the rationale to prohibit same-sex couples from marrying today. The right-wing’s position looks a lot like the American Eugenic Society’s 1936 platform: “The quality of the home is … the best existing measure of biological inheritance.”
Related:
Saving Marriage, Marrying into history, Queer eye for the Hawkeyes, More 
- Saving Marriage
Roth and Henning, dedicated partisans, were everywhere with their cameras in those historic years 2003–2006.
- Marrying into history
remember the day Vermont legalized Civil Unions for same-sex couples. I was in college at the time and I remember thinking out loud that I could move there and get "Civil Union-ed" someday. It didn't sound the same as my previous dreams of getting "Married."
- Queer eye for the Hawkeyes
This past Monday, as Iowa prepared to officially issue marriage licenses to gay applicants, both law-enforcement and state gay groups prepared for vocal, even violent opposition in America's heartland.
- California matters
For four years, and 10,000 same-sex nuptials, Massachusetts has had a monopoly on gay marriage in the United States.
- Death by handgun
A couple of weeks ago, David S. Bernstein wrote about the growing "state sovereignty" movement backed by anti-government conspiracy theorists and gun-rights extremists, and touted on the syndicated radio show and Web site of deranged agitator Alex Jones.
- Winning marriage in Maine
Three years ago, after winning non-discrimination protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals, we began a journey to win protections for LGBT families. We knew our best chance for winning marriage was through the Legislature and that once we passed a bill, we would have to defend it at the polls.
- Jubilation!
We can all thank the conservatives who several years ago controlled the state legislature for the fact that Massachusetts citizens have same-sex- marriage rights.
- Taking gay rights to Obama
You might have seen Chase Whiteside and Erick Stoll, seniors at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, around town in the days leading up to November 3.
- Economic scale
We want what everyone wants — happiness and the personal freedoms our forefathers lived and died for.
- One man, one octupus
Marriage equality
- Ho-Hos and air guitars
The fact is, most couples argue in the early stages of wedding planning. My partner, Diane, and I are no exception to this rule. Currently, our biggest argument surrounding plans for our wedding is whether or not she can slide into the ballroom during our reception, performing Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" on her air guitar.
- Less
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News Features
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