Gay Mafia

Gay Mafia,[lower-alpha 1] Gaystapo, and Homintern are pejorative terms for the influence of gay rights groups and the LGBT community in politics, media, culture, religion, and everyday life, along with the promotion of a perceived "gay agenda".[1]

Usage

Homintern

In 1937 the English gay classics scholar Sir Maurice Bowra referred to himself as part of the "Homintern".[2] However, there are competing claims about who coined the term – including Jocelyn Brooke, Harold Norse and W. H. Auden. Auden used the term in the "Parisian Review" in 1950. A takeoff on Comintern (Communist International), it was meant to convey the idea of a global homosexual community.[lower-alpha 2][lower-alpha 3][lower-alpha 4][lower-alpha 5]

"Homintern" was also used by American Senator Joe McCarthy during the McCarthyist scare in the 1950s, who used it to claim that the administrations of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman were set on destroying America from within.[6] Attempts were made to link Communism and homosexuality, with "homintern" a play on the word "Comintern" (the short name of the Communist International). But the word was also used ironically by those in favor of gay rights.[7][8][9]

Homintern also appeared in a number of mass-circulation magazine articles during the 1960s - such as Ramparts, which in 1966 published an article by Gene Marine about the Homintern. It was also frequently used in the conservative magazine National Review. William F. Buckley, Jr. would warn of the machinations of the Homintern on his TV talk show Firing Line – feeding the conservative belief that the Homintern deliberately manipulated culture to encourage homosexuality by promoting camp programs such as the popular 1960s TV series Batman. Such magazine articles were often illustrated with the color lavender and the Homintern was sometimes called "the lavender conspiracy". It was subsequently claimed that there was a secret worldwide network of gay art gallery owners, ballet directors, movie producers, record label executives and photographers who, behind the scenes, determined who would become successful artists, dancers, actors, and models.[7]

The historian Michael S. Sherry has used the term hominterm discourse "for the untidy bundle of ideas and accusations about the gay creative presence".[10]

Gaystapo

The term "Gaystapo" (French: Gestapette) was coined in France in the 1940s by political satirist Jean Galtier-Boissière for the Vichy education minister, Abel Bonnard. It was subsequently applied by National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen to Florian Philippot, who he accused of being a bad influence on Marine Le Pen.[11][12]

Mafia

Homosexual and Gay mafia

The English critic Kenneth Tynan wrote to A.C. Spectorsky (editor of Playboy) in 1967 proposing an article on the "Homosexual Mafia" in the arts.[13] Spectorsky declined, although he admitted that "culture hounds were paying homage to faggotismo as they have never done before" Playboy would subsequently run a panel on gay issues in April 1971.

"Gay Mafia" became more widely used in the US media in the 1980s and 1990s, such as the American daily The New York Post. The term was also used by the British tabloid The Sun in 1998 in response to what it claimed was sinister dominance by gay men in the Labour Party Cabinet.[14][15][16][17] The term "gay mafia" may also have gained wider popular prominence after it was used in both a 1995 Spy article and subsequently a 2002 Vanity Fair article, wherein Michael Ovitz, in an interview,[18] stated that a "gay mafia" was largely responsible for his company's failures.[19]

Referring to criticism of Mozilla's chief executive Brendan Eich who donated money to a ballot opposing gay marriage in 2014, the TV host Bill Maher argued "There is a gay mafia – if you cross them, you do get whacked."[20]

Lavender mafia

While the term "Lavender Mafia" has occasionally been used to refer to informal networks of gay executives in the US entertainment industry,[21] more generally it refers to Church politics. For example a faction within the leadership and clergy of the Roman Catholic Church that allegedly advocates the acceptance of homosexuality within the Church and its teachings.[22] In 2013, Pope Francis spoke about a "gay lobby" within the Vatican, and promised to see what could be done.[23] In July 2013, Francis went on to draw a distinction between the problem of lobbying and the sexual orientation of people: "If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?" "The problem", he said, "is not having this orientation. We must be brothers. The problem is lobbying by this orientation, or lobbies of greedy people, political lobbies, Masonic lobbies, so many lobbies. This is the worse problem."[24][25]

See also

Notes
  1. Also Velvet or Lavender Mafia
  2. [1930s?] "The new literary fashion then in the ascendant, dominated by what Jocelyn Brooke (himself homosexual, but detached from 'committed' writing) used to call The Homintern, was unsympathetic to me; at the same time the fourth novel on which I was now at work – to have the title Agents and Patients – did not entirely satisfy my own standards in breaking fresh ground."- Anthony Powell (1981)[3]
  3. "The word 'Homintern', which I coined in 1939, is attributed to Auden, who used it in an article in the Parisian Review about 1941, and has passed into the language. A takeoff on Comintern (Communist International), it was meant to convey the idea of a global homosexual community." –Harold Norse (1989; correction: Auden's first articles in Parisian Review was in 1950)[4]
  4. "A Playboy of the Western World: St. Oscar, the Homintern Martyr" – Title of a review by W. H. Auden of The Paradox of Oscar Wilde by George Woodcock, in Partisan Review, April 1950.
  5. "Anthony Powell suggested that his friend Jocelyn Brooke invented the term that Harold Nurse tells us Auden stole from him. Whoever invented it provided us with a splendid word to explain the social and cultural power of homosexuality." –Patrick Higgins (1993)[5]

References
  1. J. Bryan Lowder. "Gay mafia: Why are conservatives afraid of LGBTQ activists?". Slate Magazine. Retrieved 29 December 2014.
  2. "Bowra, Sir (Cecil) Maurice (1898–1971)" by L. G. Mitchell, "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography"
  3. Anthony Powell, Faces in My Time, Vol. 3 of To Keep the Ball Rolling: Memoirs by Anthony Powell), Holt, Rinehart and Winston 1981, ISBN 9780030210013, no page
    Anthony Powell: To Keep the Ball Rolling: The Memoirs of Anthony Powell (new edition, abridged), University of Chicago Press, 2001, ISBN 9780226677217, p. 221
  4. Harold Norse: Memoirs of a Bastard Angel, W. Morrow, 1989, ISBN 9780688067045, p. 77
  5. A Queer Reader, ed. Patrick Higgins, Fourth Estate (UK), 1993, p. 315
  6. Blumenthal, Max (13 July 2010). Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party (reprint ed.). Nation Books. p. 205. ISBN 9781568584171. Retrieved 9 March 2015.
  7. "A review of "Gay Artists in Modern American Culture An Imagined Conspiracy" by Michael S. Sherry". The San Francisco Chronicle. 25 November 2007. Retrieved 23 January 2008.
  8. "From Auden to Wilde: a roll call of gay talent"
  9. Woods, Gregory (2016). Homintern: How Gay Culture Liberated the Modern World. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-21956-2.
  10. Sherry, Michael S. (2007). Gay Artists in Modern American Culture: An Imagined Conspiracy. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0-8078-3121-2.
  11. Perreau, Bruno (2016). Queer Theory: The French Response. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-1-5036-0046-1.
  12. Tin, Louis-Georges (2008). The Dictionary of Homophobia: A Global History of Gay & Lesbian Experience. Arsenal. ISBN 978-1-55152-314-9.
  13. Kenneth Tynan Letters (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1994)
  14. "'Sun' rejects outing and sacks Parris sacks Parris and rejects outing". The Independent. Retrieved 29 December 2014.
  15. "BBC News – UK – Sun changes mind over gays". News.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 29 December 2014.
  16. "House of Commons Hansard Debates for 07 Apr 2010 (pt 0001)". Publications.parliament.uk. Retrieved 29 December 2014.
  17. "A 'Gay Mafia' in Whitehall? Sex Is Back in the Headlines in Britain". Nytimes.com. 11 November 1998. Retrieved 29 December 2014.
  18. Burrough, Bryan (August 2002). "Ovitz Agonistes". Vanity Fair.
  19. Lyman, Rick (3 July 2002). "Ovitz Bitterly Bares Soul, And Film Industry Reacts". The New York Times.
  20. "Maher: "There Is A Gay Mafia – If You Cross Them, You Do Get Whacked"". RealClearPolitics. 4 April 2014.
  21. George De Stefano, An offer we can't refuse: the mafia in the mind of America, New York, 2005, Books.google.co.uk Retrieved 29 December 2014
  22. Gould, Peter (28 November 2005). "Vatican fuels gay clergy debate". BBC News. Retrieved 8 August 2007.
  23. "Pope Francis 'confirms Vatican gay lobby and corruption'". BBC News. 12 June 2013. Retrieved 27 August 2013.
  24. Lizzie Davis (29 July 2013). "Pope Francis signals openness towards gay priests". The Guardian.
  25. "Pope Francis: Who am I to judge gay people?". BBC News. 29 July 2013. Retrieved 27 August 2013.

Further reading
  • THOMAS MALLON (11 November 2007). "The Homintern". New York Times. Retrieved 5 August 2008., by Thomas Mallon, book review of Gay Artists in Modern American Culture: An Imagined Conspiracy, New York Times Book Review, Sunday, 2007-11-11. Retrieved 2007-11-16.
  • "They're here, queer, and art pioneers:, by Lisa Montanarelli, book review of Gay Artists in Modern American Culture: An Imagined Conspiracy, San Francisco Chronicle Book Review, Sunday, 2007-11-25. Retrieved 2007-11-26.
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