UNIQUELY NASTY

In the after glow of the historic ruling in the US Supreme Court that legalized same-sex marriage YAHOO NEWS have released a brand new documentary that takes an in-depth look back at our recent past when the for decades the U.S. government systemically persecuted people for just being gay. ‘UNIQUELY NASTY’ is an investigation by their chief correspondent Michael Isikoff (a former NBC Reporter) that centers mainly on the work on one openly gay man Charles Francis who once served as emissary to the gay community for his close friend George W Bush.

When Bush’s re-election campaign was in serious trouble in 2004 they chose to use the anti-gay marriage movement to whip up the conservative vote.  A deeply disenchanted Francis resigned and it spurred him off on a mission to attempt to re-dress this situation and this fledging gay activist started his research to uncover ‘the deleted history’ of the persecution of gays and lesbians under the last six Presidencies.

The story not surprisingly starts with J. Edgar Hoover the notorious FBI Director and closeted gay man.  In 1952 he ordered his operatives to track down, identify and expose all homosexuals working for the U.S. Government.  He called it the ‘sex deviates’ program, and it ended up containing 333,000 files.  Next year President Eisenhower signed Executive Order 10458 that declared sexual perversion to be a threat to national security, effectively legalizing blatant homophobe and unfettered discrimination.  

The documentary shows how this war on gays shattered and ruined people’s lives and even led to the death of one US Senator.  It includes a treasure trove from a cache of secret government files that Francis, and a team of Washington lawyers have uncovered and sifted through. The nightmarish scenarios make for shocking reading and remind you realise that until very recently being gay was still officially considered as immoral, scandalous and uniquely nasty.

This ‘must-see’ 30 minute documentary can be viewed in full FREE below and should be compulsory viewing for every gay man and woman lest any of us forget the nightmares that others lived through before we could enjoy the freedoms and equality we do today.

As well as adding comments Yahoo invite you to also upload personal testimonials, documents, letters, photographs or other material related to this dark chapter in our history