Looking at the past, for the future.

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The persecution of gay men and lesbians dramatically increased at every level of government after the Second World War. In 1950, following Senator Joseph McCarthy's denunciation of the employment of gay persons in the State Department, the Senate conducted a special investigation into “the employment of homosexuals and other sex perverts in government.” S. Rep. No. 241 (1950). The Senate Committee recommended excluding gay men and lesbians from all government service because homosexual acts violated the law. The Committee also cited the general belief that “those who engage in overt acts of perversion lack the emotional stability of normal persons,” and that homosexuals “constitute security risks.” It also portrayed homosexuals as predators: “[T]he presence of a sex pervert in a Government agency tends to have a corrosive influence on his fellow employees. These perverts will frequently attempt to entice normal individuals to engage in perverted practices. This is particularly true in the case of young and impressionable people who might come under the influence of a pervert. Government officials have the responsibility of keeping this type of corrosive influence out of the agencies under their control. One homosexual can pollute a Government office.”

I've been reading more and more about early gay activism to see what parallels we can find. LGBT people are fairly universally accepted now, it's almost hard to imagine them being as reviled as MAPs are today. Yet looking at these statements from the Senate Committee in 1950 they get pretty close. The battle we need to fight at times feels hopefully. But "emotionally unstable", "corrosive", "polluting", "predator" "sex perverts" are not only accepted, but celebrated. If it can be done once, it can be done again.

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https://wapercyfoundation.org/wp-conten ... s_2003.pdf

The struggle for MAP rights in the United States is based on the idea that feelings of love and sexual attraction for and by minors are natural, moral, normal, psychologically health, and deserving of full equality in the legal, political, and all aspects of society. The movement for equality is a response to the previously held ideas that adult-minor behavior is unnatural, immoral, abnormal, psychologically sick, and legally, politically and socially unacceptable.

A quote from a 2003 book on LGBT rights- obviously edited.