I see that Mike Wallace is being given a grand send off and is being called a journalistic hero.
The newspapers are full of glowing obituaries, and TV stations have been running clips of his most famous interviews and documentaries.
But funnily enough nobody mentioned the famous documentary LGBT activist Wayne Besen has described as the single most destructive hour of anti-gay propaganda in U.S. history.
The one where Wallace said this:
“The average homosexual, if there be such, is promiscuous. He is not interested or capable of a lasting relationship like that of a heterosexual marriage. His sex life, his love life, consists of a series of one–chance encounters at the clubs and bars he inhabits. And even on the streets of the city — the pick-up, the one night stand, these are characteristics of the homosexual relationship.”
This horrible thing . . .
I can’t imagine what a young gay person would have felt watching that broadcast.
I can’t imagine what it must have been to live in a time like that one.
But the next time some old straight person waxes nostalgically about the good old days, I’m going to ask them what they did to stop gay people from being treated like subhumans?
And if they say they didn’t do anything, I’m going to ask them why not? And do they even feel the slightest bit guilty?
Mike Wallace may have been a good newsman.
But he was no hero . . .
Thanks for this. The Homosexuals was a terribly bigoted and destructive news special which was steeped in outright homophobia. Mike Wallace held many courageous and history-making interviews, and he was a fine journalist, but he cannot escape the blatant prejudice of this news special. He was instrumental in legitimizing the piece, and I hope it was a decision he regretted later in life.