"The Homosexuals": Mike Wallace's 1967 CBS Documentary

[Douglas Carpenter]

I saw this for the first time today.

Sometimes it is worthwhile to take a look back in time at just how hideous attitudes were within living memory of many of us. My goodness I would have been twelve going on thirteen when this documentary aired on nationwide TV. As ignorant as opinions are in this video - this would have been relatively liberal for the time. After all they did suggest that prison sentences for private sexual acts between consenting adults were probably not a good idea even though polling at the time suggested most Americans supported it.

[hlthe2b]

1. Wow... I was pretty young then and remember more the nightly Vietnam carnage on the news--

along with the sad assassinations to come a year later, so this is not something I'd seen or realized had been covered in that era.

Interesting, to say the least...

[War Horse]

2. Wow.

I wish we could just point back and laugh about this, now, in 2014...

[DreamSmoker]

3. Very interesting

I was in 5th Grade then... I remember my Cousin who played with Dolls and made Doll Houses himself..
The family all knew what he was when he was three...
He turned out just fine all these years later..
Yes he is Gay and very Happy with his Partner after many years now...

Mind blowing that this is still up front and center as a Political issue...
But then thats Politics today...

[mahatmakanejeeves]

4. Some people reminisce about the 60s as if that was the greatest time ever.

I'm not one of them.

[Douglas Carpenter]

10. I think a lot of people look back at the 60's era with rose colored glasses

I remember when the Kent State massacre happened on May 4, 1970 - Growing up in western PA only about a two hour drive from Kent State - I was the only kid in my ninth grade class to think or at least say out loud that it was wrong for the Guard National Guard to shoot and kill those students. Everyone in the class including the supposedly liberal teacher thought I was -pretty kooky for holding such an extreme opinion.

Maybe the Play Write Thornton Wilder had it right when he said , "The reason the world is such mess is because previous generations were so stupid."

[JDPriestly]

5. Change can be great. Now imagine the 1960s with the NSA surveillance

and the internet. A time of change and the government, outlawing something like homosexuality, having the capacity to place people suspected of homosexuality under surveillance.

We would not have gay marriage today.

[Doctor_J]

6. Stuff like this and refer madness and the VD PSAs are hilarious and crucial to our history

can cannot erase history without risking repeating it.

[drynberg]

7. Well, even in our worst rants, at least it is not the vast majority that is reviled by gays, plus

Gore Vidal was so bright, cool and articulate...in fact it is as if he's speaking now in 2014, 47 years later. Amazing, I wasn't aware of such a bright hate spot about sexuality in the mainstream press.

[blkmusclmachine]

8. The G-O-Pee hasn't evolved. The Buybull-beaters still want gay people put to death.

[valerief]

9. I remember those days when we poor whites were taught

homosexuals were monsters and black people were morons. Luckily, for a lot of us, it didn't take.

[thecytron]

11. Remembering those young boys being raped by Homosexual men?

How strange that nobody seems to remember those young boys today!

It seems like nobody cares about it!

I guess, it's OK!

Nobody did care about it back then!

[Douglas Carpenter]

14. what is it you are saying?

[markpkessinger]

12. The delicious irony about this video . . . .

. . . is that the psychiatrist/psychotherapist who is featured in it, Dr. Charles Socarides, was the father of Democratic political analyst/strategist Richard Socarides, who is not only openly gay, but was the senior adviser to the Clinton Administration on LGBT issues!

My, but the universe has a twisted sense of humor sometimes!

[Douglas Carpenter]

13. Thanks for that little bit of history. believe it was Dr. Charles Socarides who started clearly

and boldly that it would be impossible for someone who had a nurturing caring father to become homosexual. I wonder if he later modified his views?