Next, Farz takes us on a journey through the fight for LGBTQ+ rights - people who have always existed but not always been able to tell their truth publically. Unsurprisingly, American prude Senator Joseph McCarthy, and his team were behind this 'purple herring' where they pushed people out of government for being 'unfit.' We wish we could say things are 100% fixed since then, but alas, we still have work to do.
Next, Farz takes us on a journey through the fight for LGBTQ+ rights - people who have always existed but not always been able to tell their truth publically. Unsurprisingly, American prude Senator Joseph McCarthy, and his team were behind this 'purple herring' where they pushed people out of government for being 'unfit.'
We wish we could say things are 100% fixed since then, but alas, we still have work to do.
Photos via Public Domain & #midjourney #AI
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Hi Friends! Our transcripts aren't perfect, but I wanted to make sure you had something - if you'd like an edited transcript, I'd be happy to prioritize one for you - please email doomedtofailpod@gmail.com - Thanks! - Taylor
Americans ask not what your country can do for you and we're back ask what you
can do are moving over to the True Crime side of it's not even true crime my
topic today is going to be weird Taylor I think you're going to have a lot of opinions on the topic today because like I went a little bit out of my element
and I think I did an okay job but I don't know so let me let me start by saying welcome to do the fail the
podcast about relationships or things that were do to fail and today we're covering I guess kind of a historical
thing slash like almost True Crime more so public Intrigue I I don't know how to
really describe it I like that we're getting weird with it that's what I what I like about I like about us is we're
getting weird we're getting a little this one's gonna be a little bit weird Okay so great are you ready
I'm ready I'm excited okay okay so today's story is going to have three
acts act one will be the topic we're covering itself act two will be the
public backlash the thing that we're covering and act three will be the Doom to fail part of the
story nice interesting right I'm taking my I'm taking my cues really doing all
interesting things like seven Parts two like I need to be more creative Taylor really love it pushing the envelope here
um okay so if you're ready we're going to go ahead and draw the curtain on act
one so okay I'm going to start today's Story by covering one of the most shameful parts of American history and
one that is much less wellknown than its Crimson counterpart the lavender
scare do you know what this is okay no is it about
gays yes but you could say differently yeah yes
is I apologize cut that out no no I don't know I don't know tell
me okay we're gonna get into it so I will say also as as Taylor has mentioned
in the past like we are not queer historians I am sure that I'm going to
leave stuff out and that someone much smarter than me could do a better job and a more comprehensive job of covering
today's topic but I went down a rabbit hole and got too far before realizing I really just did have enough time to pick
a different topic so here we are and we're just going to move forward so um as most people are aware in Oppenheimer
the movie basically Bor everybody to death about the Red Scare was a period of American History where accusations of
being a communist or having communist sympathies basically resulted in people losing
their livelihoods and their careers and reputations in American US government agencies the same thing ended up
happening with the house of American Committee which was the equivalent for the entertainment industry but what
we're focusing on is the government agency set of things today what is less known is that in
parallel to the Red Scare was the lavender scare which was the name attributed to the same kind of marginalizing and abuse that went into
outing purported homosexuals from government agencies so this story reminded me which
I shouldn't probably need a reminder of this but it did remind me of how important institutions are and kind of
driving public Zeitgeist so Stonewall the uprising didn't happen until almost
1970 the lavender scare started in 1947 and kind of set the national mood for
how people would think of and treat homosexuals basically the Genesis of setting that
mood was the state department setting security protocols for the types of people who were ill suited to serving
the US government and the criteria for that protocol was and this is a quote
Communists their Associates those guilty of Espionage persons known for habitual
drunkenness sexual perversion moral turpitude financial responsibility or criminal
records so the key there was the term sexual perversion and I went did a little side
quest here and started digging into the DSM the DSM is the acronym that stands
for Di Diagnostic and statistical manual for disorders which is basically the
book of all psychological disorders essentially so I went as far back as the
dsm1 which is the very first edition of the DSM and that was published a little
bit after this time so the red lavender scar started around 1947 the DSM one was published in 1952 before then it was
actually worse definition wise there was another diagnostic book on this but this the DSM was the first time they kind of
cified it in the DSM homosexual uality was listed and categorized under sexual
deviations on the same level as pedophilia like that's what it was considered at the time and the that was
the term being used for it was sexual perversion so when the state department includes that term that's what they're
talking about specifically so it was only in 1974 with the publication of the dsm2 in the
organizing effort of gay right activists the medical community finally decided to consider homosexuality as a slightly
better thing which was then known is a sexual orientation disturbance which
still sounds awful it was still considered a mental disorder but it was still better than the other
classification of the dsm1 it's also worth noting that as of today which we are now at the dsm5 there
is literally no category for homosexuality like it's not considered mental disorder obviously and so yeah
progress we made it somehow so are you following yes that is super interesting
and it's so weird to like write why would you write that down which one you know like the whole thing like why would
you have to write down like that it's a disorder you know it's just weird to me
yeah well so that was basically the medical consensus for all of time it's
funny I I went into this took me down so many different sidetracks the entire year Rights Movement started in like
Germany in the 1880s because like that was the first time anybody tried to stand up for for the cause and and mhm
it's always been considered like some sort of a mental like defect it's only as of like the late 1990s or so that it
started becoming mostly accepted in society but even then it wasn't like great so yeah it's it's it was a wild
wild CH events it sounds like the 1940s and 50s and 60s were incredibly incredibly difficult um but Lu the medal
Community made the change made the switch so um so the the point being that
the medical comme itself class IED homosexuality in this way which of course is how the federal government
followed as well also I want to note that I'm only referring to the time period in this story known as a lavender
scare because that was the most aggressive and overt attempt by the federal government to otherize people
it's not like the time before this was any better but it just wasn't like a um it wasn't like a national thing it
wasn't like the you know it's like when 911 happened and like the entire country is just focused on that thing that's
what was going on here and so before that it was like okay you run into a thing something happens you know you get
caught for some like I forgot what the term was they use but you got CAU like licid lucidious whatever contact or lwd
behavior and it's like okay you know Bill over there got caught for something whatever a year or two he's over it and
we're moving on with our lives but this was different this was like the entire nation's kind of staring at this one topic which made it a lot lot worse
because it's not like being outed just meant that
you it wasn't a quiet thing it meant you lost your Li it mean it means you lost
your career your future your social network your F like it was everything was gone it was a huge huge
deal so in 1950 as Joseph McCarthy was picking up steon as prosecution of
purported communist the under Secretary of State a guy whose name I will have a hard time pronouncing called John
puroy announced that the state department had rooted out and fired about 91 gay people the government
consensus was that one that is a shockingly large number and two it means President Truman was not taking this
threat seriously part of this was driven by the feror McCarthy himself was spinning up because it was seen as being weak or
immoral to not be outraged that gay people were in the government and if you weren't being super super aggressive and
aggro about it then you were you were part of the problem you're gay so yeah exactly oh that's so stupid yeah part a
part of was like self-preservation of like this cowardice being like i' better call Steve out because if I don't call
Steve out Steve might call me out you know right totally and it was funny of
course there's tons of gay people in the government of course because there's always been gay people we talked about this a lot of course go to DC like it's
it's a great City like it's a fun city like yeah but but also the other other part was like what people would do at
this time was they would introduce themselves and say things like um hi I'm Steve I've been married to Julie for
five years we have six children you they would like be over the top like a part of who you are yeah they would put that
part of their identity first and foremost because that's how scared people were like that because you didn't have to act by the way you we don't know
if these people were actually gay right and exactly that's that's not the point either that's not the point at
all yeah exactly exactly so in 1953 Truman's second term was done he he did
not aggressively pursue this like he was just like this is crazy like he's not he wasn't in that head space um he actually
could have run for a third time because he was grandfathered in as um an incumbent president but he decided
against it and Eisenhower became president one of the first things he does as a president is sign executive
order 10450 which happened only two months after assuming
office this executive order made it illegal to hire or allow the employment of gay federal workers 5,000 such
workers were fired for suspicion of homosexuality and they again like they weren't just
being fired they were being publicly outed like there was a roster people could look at um and
wenow he also he also put in God we trust on everything so here's the thing here's
the thing about Eisenhower that if you go deeper into this executive order and his relationship with McCarthy and
McCarthyism is that he was also under
this like when when CU When when the election happened the 52 election
happened a part of the fervor in America was this anti-communist anti-gay
sentiment and part of the reason why Eisenhower ended up winning was because Republicans were seen to be stronger on
this topic than Democrats and the public zge was going towards that and so I'll
get to this later on well actually I won't get to it later on because I didn't write it down but eventually when
McCarthyism kind of wains and goes away it was obvious that time that is was
like great [ __ ] this guy never want to be this way anyways like I'm done with this [ __ ] like it was like sure like
he probably wasn't great but it it seems like he did this as also part of like
self-preservation I agree and I also I I mean I think the I think the god stuff
[ __ ] us up because people think that that was always there um but I don't I do like him I did I do like the way he
ended his presidency you know with the military industrial complex like everyone [ __ ] down and then I also I
like that he was a general and I like that um in the book I read a biography about him and in that biography um
specifically about McCarthy I'm remembering that he kind of let McCarthy like do his stuff on TV because he was like this guy's [ __ ] crazy everyone's
going to see it and they kind of did and it was kind of embarrassing for McCarthy yeah exactly exactly there's also something I learned
in the middle of all this that has to do with pres um the term called presentism which is the sentiment that
you see now a lot which is like if you didn't think the way a modern person would think today about social issues
then you're the problem like a thousand years ago which is like an unfair perspective to take and it really came
in perspective when I was researching this because you want to think that like marginalized communities have each
other's backs in some ways and one thing I learned was like that is a th% was not the case in the gay community like there
was there was gradients to this there was the white male gays and then there was like the socioeconomic ladder of
gays there was like the minorities was the transgenders there was one guy who became like a huge figure one of the
first people to get fired from the um he's he's an astronomer working for the Army he he ended up getting fired he
ended up never working again because of the the lavender scare but you read like his comments about race in the 1960s and
you're like right H it's you're like man I want to support
you like I do I do support like that you got railroaded but like why are you going that direction with this like
there's no gross yes and so anyways that led me down a different rabbit hole but
presentism like like look into it like it is generally shitty to like judge
people in the past for like what current social mors are but it's also OB it can be gross the
way it was gross when I was reading this guy talking about race anyways yeah Sidetrack um no 100% I know what you're
saying so yeah so okay so this executive order yes pass and just remind people of
how recent this history is that we're talking about the Eisenhower executive order that made it illegal to have hire
um or retain somebody gay in the federal government or federal agency that was in
partially rescinded when Bill Clinton signed as don't ask don't tell policy for the US military in 1995 but that was
only for the US military that was not for civilians can't believe how reason that wasn't how shitty it was
yeah so it was it was interesting because I read this other notes which was like this is a hilarious side thing
that ended up happening because of Eisenhower which was when the Vietnam draft happened all these people came out
saying that they're gay when they got drafted you're like [ __ ] this I'm not going to Vietnam um and then it would be
in the last three days of the Obama presidency in 2017 that executive order
13988 would be signed to outright prevent discrimination in the civilian or the military branched to the US
government on the basis of sexual orientation that was 2017 that was
January 7 January 17 2017 three days before Trump took presidency
crazy so the persecution of homosexuals and state and federal government
agencies continued on throughout the 1990s again like it was only 19 in 2017
when the federal government actually apologized for the damage that caus this in this era but all that being said I'm
going to leave the lavender scar here for a beat so we can head into act two of the story today called the resistance
you ready all right yeah I'm ready so I don't know Taylor I think like given our
backgrounds like our work history and stuff like I think we both have like a pretty good understanding of like the power of organizing and that's where
this story kind of starts in with with the gay rights movement so I'm going to touch on what movement building
typically looks like and you'll see how it plays out in this situ situation there's no set way to build a movement
but in Broad Strokes it requires four things as defined by an organization I found called Jass which is um short for
just Associates which is a Grassroots U movement building advocacy organization that's focused towards female
empowerment and they put together this framework which if you were to look this up there's like 20 different Frameworks
for this like there is no set way of doing this but generally speaking this breakdown made the most sense to me given like again like our background in
movements and organizing and stuff like that the four pieces of it were number one rising up which is finding
like-minded individuals number two building up which is what we would consider consider traditional organizing
sharing your message and spreading it to mobilize others the third is standing up which is direct action or something
close to it you know some people don't have to go all the way to direct action but they could and the fourth is shaking
up which is combatting that thing you're fighting for with policy
so now that we have that framework I'm going to bring up my second favorite
podcast ever which is called you're wrong about because I'm going to be paring part of what the host commentary
on the gay rights movement was as it related to their episode on the Stonewall rights again I'm just going
off like I'm not in this community like I'm going off of what I'm hearing from
others that are in the community safe like your beef was with with them if you don't like what I'm where I'm going with
this but unlike I know I know nice disclaimer right unlike I like it other
diaspora in the US gayus isn't limited to race religion
education socio economic status geography it's not limited to anything really it's just as one unique
characteristic that anybody can share with others right in that sense the fact
that the gay rights move was able to form the resistance that we're we we're going to be discussing here is actually super impressive because how do you
bring together for example and this is like directly from like I'm paring the host from you're wrong about Michael
Hobbs how do you bring together let's say like a 35-year-old gay Manhattan lawyer making like 300,000 a year living
in a penthouse and a 20y old like Gay Street Punk who's living in the subway
stations right like the only thread between them is sexual orientation really their lived experiences are
vastly different and so there there's not like obvious places where like those
things Collide like I would argue that okay let's say like it's 1960s and you're like a black like accountant
versus like you're it's 1960s and you're like a black I I don't know like um store Clark or something like your
living experien is going to still look very similar like the dayto day when you go to the grocery store it's going to look very similar it's going to look very similar to like you know talk to
certain police or what whatever but these two this part of the diaspora is
like vastly different than that and so it makes it super challenging on the first two part of movement building
which is rising and building up together to kind of put those pieces together essentially so one group
that initially took the plunge and started what would have been basically career in social suicide was this
organization called the Madan Society have you heard of
this okay so the history and origin of the Manan Society is kind all the place and some of it is kind of problematic
mostly because it really coincidentally not like by not
deliberately it happened to tie communism and hom homosexuality together because of the origins of its founder
and the original members and it went through like a a huge upheaval because then the laender scare happened and the
the Red Scare happened like guys we can't be tied to this like it's bad enough like we don't need communism as
part of part of the mix right and so anyways there's a lot there and so the main the main thing
that the National Society basically did was it created the opportunity for gay
people to kind of come together in mostly an anonymous way and just kind of discuss their lived
experiences but the more critical part in this was that it kind of spun off
into its own thing it turned into a non centralized movement where every city
would have its own m iety and all of a sudden it started the the rising up part
of movement building started to kind of realize itself the third step so sorry the the
rising up part was basically the initial knowing that you could come together and then as it's Distributing across you
know then it's building up that's actual traditional organizing the third step the standing up part came in the biggest
way in 1969 with the ride of the Stonewall in obviously I'm sure you've been You' probably been to Stonewall in
right I haven't um no
okay I know I know where it is cool yeah yeah so the Stonewall Inn was at the
time kind of like a hidden gay club which was run by the mafia New York by all accounts it was a complete [ __ ] hole
but it was like super fun it was the one place gay people around the Greenwich Village area could kind of come together
for a night on the town and because running you know a a gay establishment
was illegal at the time everything was kind of done underground and because of this the mafia saw an opening and took it upon themselves to open the stone
wall in obviously they did not their patrons in the highest you know esteem
they were like whatever yeah like I sorry um I was I was in Charlotte North
Carolina and there was like a Stonewall Street and I was like wow that's so Progressive and then I was like oh no they mean ston stall Jackson yeah yeah
different different uh and he was killed by Friendly Fire BT dubs it just that was just like I was
like right yeah I don't know why this why they I actually didn't research why they called The Stonewall in but um but
stories I heard it's literally by like a stone wall of like old New York or something I don't know that might not be
true but I think it's something like that oh yeah yeah of course because Stonewall is its own word right and like
Stonewall Jackson was named that because he was like an immovable object okay yeah makes sense his name wasn't stone
wall okay um so yeah I've read stories about which that's a good but but put
that on your list for your future children Stonewall Stonewall in like a just a Stonewall way like not
referencing anything like no this kid's tough I know it's it could go go either direction though you're kind of you're
kind of pigeon holding your child into Super masculinity or or not but um maybe
so yeah like again like this was run by the mafia and so as a result of that one thing I read was like there was no like running water and so people just like
piss in buckets they would throw the like it was not a well-run facility it was all underground [ __ ] right and
so um the the additional layer to this was that there was basically like a tcid
understanding between the Stonewall its patrons and the police where police would regularly rate it and they would
usually rate it earlier in the night like call like 9 10 o00 when it wasn't super packed it wasn't super busy they
would you know put a padlock on the door kick everybody out they would steal the cigar box that contained there was
basically their makeshift register full of money and like well that's your punishment they probably take one or two
people that work there and say we're got to throw you in jail but it was like this understanding like okay like this is our one Haven but we're g to get
[ __ ] with every now and then right right that kind of changed on June 28th of 1969 when because it they decided to
break into this place and shut it down at 1:20 a.m. so people were like they thought they were safe they were having
a good time police show up was past that time way past that time it was basically
my understanding of it is that the police broke this tased understanding between the patrons of Stonewall and the
morals police of of in New York and so people were upset and as they were
getting upset one woman which I'm not even going to refer to her
what they refer to her she has she has a name that would be probably like a derogatory term now and so I'm not going
to refer to her to that but um she uh she she ends up getting arrested and they're doing it pretty aggressively and
she ends up fighting back against the police and so as she was fighting back against the police people saw like oh
wait we we can fight back against him by all accounts it was somewhere around like 500 or so people had gathered
outside the Stonewall in when this was going on maybe like a tenth of the number of cops they're like oh we
outnumber these people dramatically let's go ahead and do something and so at that point all hell kind of breaks
loose and one of the details I loved about this was that the um the uh uh police calling the SWAT team and like
there's like a conga line forming where they like throw rocks at like the police and they run behind them through the alleyway and then do like a conga line
of making fun of them and then run back around and throw rocks it was it was just Mayhem it was absolute Mayhem but I
will say to the credit of the chief of police at the time he did tell his men
to like not use deadly force which is restraint that I don't even know police
would have today much less back then 100% no yeah so that's great
so this Riot is basically considered the birth of the Gay Pride men it was the
flip from let's be in secret so nobody knows who we are to how uh the way we're being treated as
[ __ ] to [ __ ] you we're not taking this anymore like it is it follows the pattern of movement
building in in like a longtail way from the from the days of the 1940s the
madican society like that distribution of the M Society across different um cities to let's have these local haunts
to Let's Rebel let's let's fight back because at this time again it was
illegal to even have these establishments like it was like it was it was completely criminalized and so
this was a very overt way to kind of fight back against that the riot was the Genesis of the
actual first superu gay rights organization like literally it was like right after the Stonewall right this happened it was
called The Gay Liberation Front they're closer to like a direct action organization as opposed to what Madison
Society really was which was like let's just like know that we have caderie among amongst each other they took again
you you cut off you cut out a little bit say that oh sorry so they were they were more of a direct action organization as
opposed to Madison society which was more of a let's just get together and talk about things and know that we have
a safe space with each other so I mean one thing I read was that the
Gay Liberation Front thought that man society was just like an Oldtimer thing and was like these guys are way too chill about this like we need to get out
there and crackheads um they also did something fun which was they formed like internal caucuses so for example like
the lesbian members would have their caucus the trans members would have theirs the drag queens would have theirs
and they would openly protest at City Hall on street corners they would publish periodicals on issues that were
affected the community in those individual caucuses like they were very out and and loud about it which was
Brave frankly because everything was illegal like literally existing was illegal at that point so yeah good for
them on that front on the fourth element of movement building the last piece of it was shaking up and that had to do
with uh implementing policy so today there are 11 openly gay members of the
US House and sorry yeah yeah of the US House and two in the US Senate so so by
percentage the Pew Research Foundation founds found that 7.4% of Americans
identify as LGBT by comparison the makeup of Congress is 2.4% between the house and
the Senate combined and so you know it's not quite direct representation but like that is huge like from from like huge
like being like and also like go ahead
sorry no I was gonna say also just like being able to say it out loud you know
I'm sure that were gay members of Congress and I'm sure there's more I'm sure there's more there's got to be way
more causitive ones out there but I'm saying like in 2017 is the first time
there was an actual repeal of the law that Eisenhower or that was
2017 and and I mean it's yeah it's it's wild to think about um but with that
said we can actually pivot now to act three which is the doomed to fell part of all this amazing so did so much work
for this I'm so proud of you a thank you it was so well research keep going
once you go down the once you start going down it it's just like oh my God it's interesting because it is it's like
it's almost like a diarama of like a movement like you look at like you know
um black right organizations or Racial equality movements and stuff like that
there's history that goes backwards like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of
years and there's so many different like um milestones and it's so slow in in terms
of how it happened the fact that this went from like something that we kind of know what's going on but we're not
really going to look at to we're g to prosecute to we're going to revolt it
it's like it's like 15 years you can actually get like a beautiful picture of like what a movement should look like
just looking at gay rights mement because it happened within a very finite window of time and it happened
dramatically I mean and in the middle of it you have HIV because that was huge
yeah yeah they had to do so much I mean there's still so much that like didn't happened in the 80s that should have
happened that is terrible you know they were like primed to be able to help each other um because yeah they were totally
at least able to talk about it yeah at least but that's the thing at least were able to have a community that they could
rely on each other like again going back to the manag society concept there's so many other ones there's the women of
bolius the girls of blus which is like the lesbian version of M there's like this we could have done like 17 weeks on
this but like you know I'm giving you the highlights here but um okay so act three the doomed to fell apart so the
principal architects of the red and lavender scare were two complete utter pieces of [ __ ] named Joseph McCarthy and
his chief Council Roy con spoiler alert Roy was
gay even of course he was of course he was even as he was actively outing yeah
and publicly having people fired for these allegations people even then assumed he was gay like there was one
moment we see that now all we see that now that still happens yeah find find a politician on grinder
oh Larry Craig remember Larry Craig yes exactly there you go so there
was a moment during a hearing of the lavender scare where someone he was questioning basically called him a fairy
not basically he called him a fairy and and Roy never actually admitted to being
gay but it was like pretty well known so one of his assistants his name was Russell Aldridge who was gay um and then
he died of AIDS yeah and then he also had a partner who liveed with who also died of AIDS in 1986 and then Roy
himself died of AIDS and like like he it was known it was
just like it was like Rock Hudson you couldn't say it but it was like there it was out there right um it's also worth
noting like the reason Roy such a piece of [ __ ] is he was also like Donald Trump's main attorney when he was basically evicting a bunch of minorities
out of like public housing so he could buy property and turn into El fre condos so there's that well [ __ ] and he also
defended John Gotti and basically I think it was like two other um Mafia
bosses in new like he was he was a huge no no redeeming qualiity that guy before
he died he was he was formally disbarred like he L legally could not practice law anymore so that was um that was his
contribution of society as for Roy's boss Justin McCarthy again huge huge
piece of [ __ ] there's also speculation that he was gay and this one's a bit harder to verify so Joseph was married
he did have a kid um but there was rumors that were spread around Washington of like him attending
him frequenting a bar a gay bar in Milwaukee he was a senator from Wisconsin and so Milwaukee there was
rumors that he was there there's rumors that somebody said that he tried to pick him up um and you know do all that there
some of the speculations that these accusations were if they weren't true then the
reason they probably came out was because J G Hoover who ran the FBI and Alan Dillis who ran the CIA [ __ ]
hated him they thought he was a total piece of [ __ ] and so they were like yeah let's just like put all these rumors out
there let's find people to say this [ __ ] and and try to like soil his reputation that way it didn't really work in the
end um but there is some assumption that that was what was going on the red and lavender scare and
mcarthism and his reputation all kind of came to an end when he held a hearing into the Armed Forces and how some 130
alleged Communists were employed there one thing to note and I didn't
write this down is that Roy con part of the other allegation about him being gay
that there was this guy whose name I can't remember but he he was with the Army and Roy Conn
hired him to work in McCarthy's office and Roy was apparently like completely
in love with this dude and and the Army took him and sent him overseas and Roy
would constantly have these back and force with the Army around how he should
be treated how he should have better you know um place to sleep and food like he
should be treated a certain way and if he wasn't that he was going to like try and burn the entire Army down to the ground that's what led to this hearing
it was literally the fact that Roy wasn't getting the guy he was like in love with to kind of treat he thought he
deserved and the Army wasn't acquiescing to him because they're not [ __ ] scared of him like [ __ ] you we're not
going to do what you want so then they drag the Army into a hearing on on
Communists and like and that's what fundamentally destroys Roy con and
McCarthy's reputation so I'm going to tell you what happened so they drag the chief Council for the Army into um into
this special hearing the guy's name is Joseph NY Welsh and they basically say there's 130 people who are communists in the
Army at one point so Joseph is um he's chief counsil for the Army so he also
runs a law firm as well and there was a individual named Fred something again
didn't write this down but he was apparently a part of this thing called The Lawyers Guild of America which again
you don't need a lot of information to know that like any association of people was assumed to be like some sort of a
communist thing and so because of his Association with a ski which was basically an association of other
lawyers on national TV McCarthy accused this guy Fred who was like a junior
associate at um at Welsh's law firm of being a communist and Welsh lost it Welsh like [ __ ] this guy and that's what
we all remember is the famous saying he goes this is a quote he goes have you no sense of decency sir at long last have
you left no sense of decency but there was a buildup to that like he was cutting McCarthy down over and over and
over again then he kept bringing up this guy Fred's association with this Guild and what Welsh was saying was like you
are you have no information you're trying to out my junior associate who is
like a Harvard log rat as a communist in front of the entire country yeah like [ __ ] you you have no right to do that
and so and and that was that was basically the moment that was like the pivotal turn when Welsh said that that
kind of changed the public perception this is all national television apparently the entire I didn't see the video but the entire audience in the
hearing chamber started applauding Welsh and it was right after that that the um
the US Senate decided to censure McCarthy back when censuring a senator was actually kind of a big deal and it
was it was their way of saying that you brought ill repute upon the US Senate he would basically die a few years later at
the age of 48 from what is now like it was referred to as like a way of
committing suicide because apparently he just [ __ ] was drunk con like he just drank himself to death now it is
considered that he died yeah it is now considered that he um died of therosis
of the liver but people will say that like from this day when Welsh called him out until his death like he basically
just lived with a bottle like it was it was almost a way of committing suicide so what um wow he's only 48 yeah yeah 48
that's a lot he did a lot of B another 40 years in in the Senate if he wanted yeah he
did a lot of bad [ __ ] though wow so um that is my threea story
of that's so interesting it's it really is like when she start and it's not and
it's not over you know like it's still like there's you know all you can't
teach diversity equity and inclusion in colleges in in in Texas and Florida anymore you know like it's not
yeah there's there's there's the history is going to again you got to look at things within a framework of like what it
meant for for being alive to be for like
living your life to be illegal to 30 years later like it's just crazy
it was 74 it was 74 until laws started being repealed at the federal level on
outlawing and making criminal like like gay behavior um that's not that long ago
that's not that long ago and so and always been gay people so like yeah yeah
and so I don't know I mean Taylor you're about to catch a flight like I you should it's worth listening to um that
you're wrong about episode about Stonewall I thought that because because that's what I listened to when I was like man that's that was 1969 like that
a lot of [ __ ] a lot of good [ __ ] happened between like between such a
like a not that long period of time and so I don't know if it's up your alley if it's a topic you're interested in then I definitely recommend your wrongs episode
on Stonewall um because they cover it very very comprehensively
yeah yeah so super super interesting anyway S I know you got to run you got
to get to the airport go to your thing um I will text you later with ideas on
where to go which time you think maybe s or8 yeah let's try 8 cuz I'm going to land at like 5:45 okay yeah you need
some time to rest okay well until get there um also oh I have one more
listener mail yes um we have a a a friend on Instagram named September
which is a dope name and she's been sending me like stories of like you know like that woman who wrote a book that
was like how to kill your husband and then she kills her husband yes yes and then there was like the other woman who
like killed her husband and she was like wrote a book about like grieving you're like what and then there was there's another one recently where um I I don't
I don't know what it was but some judge show not Judge Judy but a different one um there was a guy who was like talking
about being married and then he was like talking to the security guard and the security guard was like you know trying to be very like very serious and he's
like well that guy looks married and and they're like he's married but he's very happy and everyone laughs and he killed
and then he killed his wife y I remember that one that was a good one anyway
anyway don't say on TV that you love your wife because you might kill her yeah it's uniformally true never never
public discuss things like that um awesome well that that thank you
fars um we're at Doom toil POD at gmail on Instagram on YouTube and Tik Tok and
and literally everywhere we also have a substack where you can sign up for our emails if that's an easier way for you to see what we're doing each week um we'
love you to do that as well and please share it with your friends because we need to share it and I don't know how to
do that we need to be famous we get famous you guys can help us um awesome thanks
looking forward to seeing you later have a safe trip thanks um thanks are you cut it off are we say
goodbye yes faces okay okay we'll faces um [Music]