Like global warming or evolution, there is a scientific ‘consensus’ today about homosexuality: namely, that homosexuality is just as normal as heterosexuality. In fact, it is so ‘normal’ that any suggestion to the contrary must be suppressed, ridiculed, attacked, etc. Interestingly, this ‘consensus’ and its virulent reaction against any naysaying point to seemingly contradictory realities: (1) that the ‘truth’ about homosexuality’s ‘benign-ness’ is so solid and well-proven in the eyes of our cultural elite that no further debate or discussion is necessary; and (2) that the actual facts supporting the consensus are so weak that they dare not be challenged lest the emperor’s nakedness be exposed.

For many of our thought leaders, Reality #1 rules the day, to the extent that the history of how we got to this point can be regaled as a necessary triumph of the forces of ‘modern enlightenment’ over the ‘bigots’ of the past. A window on this history was originally broadcast in January 2002 by National Public Radio (NPR), and then re-broadcast recently on December 16, 2018 ¹. Yet while the program documents the change in American psychiatry that took place in the early 1970s leading to the 1973 de-listing of homosexuality as a mental disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) — psychiatry’s scientific ‘bible’ — it actually underscores how the change was not based on science and facts, but rather on a homosexual ‘plot,’ mixed together with quasi-rioting and moral cowardice.

Prior to the ‘Big Change,’ Dr. John P Spiegel — a gay, but closeted, psychiatrist — along with other closeted psychiatrists, made a deliberate effort to take over key positions in the American Psychiatric Association (APA). By 1973, he was President-elect of the APA, setting the stage for what was to come. Family members of Dr. Spiegel, including the NPR science reporter, considered him “a closeted homosexual with a very particular agenda.” He and some of his allies engaged in four years of illegal entry, name-calling, and terrorism at APA conventions. Finally, after an evening with homosexual activists during the 1973 convention, Psychiatrist Robert Spitzer and an official of the Gay Activists Alliance jointly composed the DSM language making homosexuality ‘normal.’

Backdrop

Dr. Spiegel, of course, was not alone. Earlier, in 1957, Dr. Evelyn Hooker also schemed with male homosexuals to ‘normalize’ them. Her study of 30 gays was designed to show that homosexuals and heterosexuals could not be distinguished on standard psychological tests. But for all but one or two of them, their homosexuality was made obvious as they ‘interpreted’ ink blots and pictures. Hooker was forced to score the way they told their stories as showing they were adequately ‘adjusted’ — something never done with such story tests before or since.

The Pill arrived in 1960, and began weakening the social-psychological bonds between sex, babies, and religion. In 1967, Black rioting in Detroit and other cities frightened the ruling class. In 1969, gays taunted police at the Stonewall bar, and New York City’s Mayor responded by refusing to enforce laws against homosexuality. San Francisco activists also saw an opening: could they achieve acceptance even while ‘being themselves?’ The 1970 APA convention in San Francisco provided an opportunity to test the notion. Gay activists stole press passes and with feathers in their hats loudly accused psychiatrists of oppression and sadism for labeling them ‘sick.’ In perhaps the first ‘insider assistance’ by Dr. Spiegel, no one at the convention had them arrested. Instead, their criminality, disruption, and name-calling were rewarded with a speaking slot at the next convention!

Seeding the Juggernaut

Homosexuals accelerated their disruptiveness at the 1971 convention in Washington, DC. They “broke into the auditorium through a stage door during the opening ceremony, and stormed the podium.” Besides name-calling, they also threatened bodily harm. Again, no arrests. Instead, they were rewarded by being permitted to have a gay psychiatrist speak at the 1972 convention. Enter ‘Dr Anonymous,’ who wore a multicolored tux, three sizes too large, a mask, and who used a mike to disguise his voice. He had spent the last few years testifying as an expert witness for gays who ran afoul of the law, so he knew how to pitch gay innocence.

‘Dr. Anonymous’ had also just been fired. As he recounted being told, “If you were gay and not flamboyant, we would keep you. If you were flamboyant and not gay, we would keep you. But since you are both gay and flamboyant, we cannot keep you” ². Meanwhile groups of angry gays followed conservative psychiatrists, yelling and protesting every paper they read. Gays made late night phone calls (including death threats — leading one conservative to carry a gun), and “scratched obscene messages into the paint of psychiatry department bathroom stalls.” Dr. Spiegel’s team apparently made sure the police were not called. Instead, Ron Gold, of the Gay Activists Alliance, got to speak at the 1973 convention.

After Gold spoke, he invited Dr. Spitzer, a member of the APA reference committee, to come to a bar filled with gay psychiatrists, where “once he got there and saw that the head of the Transactional Analysis Association and the guy who handed out all the training money in the United States, and the heads of various prestigious psychiatry departments at various universities were all there, he couldn't believe it…” According to the NPR science reporter: “And that's when it happened.… a young man in full Army uniform walked into the bar. He looked at Robert Spitzer. He looked at Ronald Gold. He looked at the Grand Dragon of the GAYPA. And then burst into tears. He threw himself into Ron’s arms and remained there, sobbing.”

Ron Gold: “Well, I had no idea who he was. It turned out he was a psychiatrist, an Army psychiatrist based in Hawaii, who was so moved by my speech, he told me, that he decided that he had to go to a gay bar for the first time in his life. And somehow or other, he got directed to this particular bar and saw me and all these gay psychiatrists. And it was too much for him. He just cracked up. And it was a very moving event. I mean, this man was awash in tears. And I believe that that was what decided Spitzer right then and there, let’s go. And of course, it was right after that that he said, let’s go write the resolution. And so we went back to Spitzer’s hotel room and wrote the resolution.”

Once the reference committee, headed by Dr. Spiegel, endorsed the change, it was sent to the board of trustees and the president of the APA, Dr. Alfred Freedman. Freedman was “one of the newly elected APA officials whose candidacy for office had been contrived and supported by” those who plotted to make homosexuality normal around Dr. Spiegel’s kitchen table. Dr. Freedman announced the decision to the world on December 15, 1973.

Moral and Professional Failure

The APA was filled with followers of Sigmund Freud, who asserted that his guru-like insights enabled ‘the best’ of interpersonal and social relationships. Yet these followers could not run an orderly convention or, more tellingly, detect the numerous gays scattered throughout their leadership!

Freud asserted his discoveries authorized him to make his clients divorce or marry as per his ‘analysis’ ³. Likewise, his APA followers felt their peculiar ‘mysterious knowledge’ meant they could tell society what to do about homosexuality. And their efforts paid off in tremendous societal change. Consider how very different the U.S. was prior to the 1970s:

1. In 1950, the U.S. Congress had examined homosexuality and concluded it was socially harmful, especially to youth;
2. In 1963, President Eisenhower ordered all “neurotics, alcoholics, and homosexuals” removed from Federal service;
3. In 1973, anti-sodomy laws existed in over 40 states; and
4. In 1973, the comprehensive study by psychiatrist Marcel Sagir and psychologist Eli Robins was released ⁴. It supported the traditional notion that homosexuals were more criminal as well as more ‘disturbed.’ For instance, gay males more frequently 1) had criminal records; 2) received ‘less than honorable’ military discharges; 3) contributed to the delinquency of a minor (15% of gays admitted such arrests vs. none for straights); 4) had been fired; 5) had attempted suicide (7% of gays vs none of straight men); 6) had been involved in prostitution; and 7) had substance abuse problems. Gays also had 8) more sex partners; and 9) more frequent psychiatric disorders.

Yet the pronouncement that homosexuality was no longer a mental disorder by a major scientific organization helped turn the tide. Too bad it was not based on any legitimate scientific evidence. In the NPR broadcast, the participants admit that the ‘normalization’ of homosexuality was part of a multi-year, long-term plot by gays and their allies. “Science” was barely mentioned (and that mention was largely bogus).

Conclusion

The pattern that started with Hooker, and flowered at the APA, appears in ‘gay pride parades’ to this day. Society must accept them as weird, rebellious, and threatening, as they are. The only major change to accommodate conventionality is the current banning of ‘Man/Boy Love’ demonstrators. But it seems probable even that ban will cease in time as homosexuality becomes ever more culturally entrenched.

When it comes to what psychiatry’s ‘bible’ has to say about homosexuality, why it changed has almost nothing to do with science, and everything to do with gay machinations combined with cowardice and emotionality. While the empirical evidence that existed in 1973 was not as damning to the gay cause as what exists today, the findings were generally the same: homosexuality is both a personal and social problem. And that is why Reality #2 — that the ‘facts’ supporting the supposedly benign nature of homosexuality are very thin soup — must be publicized and proclaimed to the maximum degree. The actual facts would expose the scientific fakers for what they really are, driven by ideology and agenda.

References