Uncovered Papers Show Past Government Efforts to Drive Gays From Jobs [View all]

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WASHINGTON — Days after President Lyndon B. Johnson’s election to his first full term, an administration official asked a subordinate to explain the policy on firing gays. In particular, he wondered whether someone with a history of gay liaisons could, through years of marriage, be “rehabilitated” into a trustworthy civil servant.

The response came quickly, and in language that would be shocking by today’s standards. Technically, rehabilitated gays could keep their jobs. But John W. Steele, a staff member of the Civil Service Commission, which handled personnel matters for the government, said that seldom happened.

“Some feel that ‘once a homo, always a homo,’ ” Mr. Steele wrote. He added, “Our tendency to ‘lean over backwards’ to rule against a homosexual is simply a manifestation of the revulsion which homosexuality inspires in the normal person.”

It was November 1964. Four months earlier, the president had signed the landmark Civil Rights Act banning discrimination on the basis of race, religion, sex and national origin. The policies laid out in Mr. Steele’s memo would continue for more than another decade.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/21/us/politics/uncovered-papers-show-past-government-efforts-to-drive-gays-from-jobs.html?hp&_r=0