0:00

Whenever my Butcher Box shipment arrives,

0:02

my wife and I open it up and we

0:04

start planning the great meals we're going to cook

0:07

with it. The cats come over

0:09

too, but of course they won't get

0:11

anything at that moment while everything is

0:13

still raw. The last thing I made

0:15

was Hungarian goulash and it turned out

0:18

really well. So this special deal that

0:20

Butcher Box is offering to Conspiratory listeners

0:22

is even more meaningful to me. Today

0:24

Butcher Box is giving our listeners free

0:26

ground beef for the life of your

0:29

membership plus an additional $20 off your first order.

0:33

Go to butcherbox.com/Conspiratory and use

0:35

code Conspiratory to get free

0:37

ground beef for life plus

0:39

$20 off your first box.

0:43

That's butcherbox.com/Conspiratory and

0:46

use code Conspiratory.

0:51

This episode is brought to you by

0:53

Bumble. So you want to find someone

0:55

you're compatible with, specifically someone who's ready

0:58

for a serious connection. Totally open to

1:00

having kids in the future, is a

1:02

tall rock climbing Libra and loves ronkoms

1:04

with bacon pizzas on Tuesdays just as

1:07

much as you do. Bumble knows that

1:09

you know exactly what's right for you.

1:11

So whatever it is you're looking for,

1:13

Bumble's features can help you find it.

1:16

Date now on Bumble. Hello

1:22

everyone. Welcome to Conspiratory Podcast where

1:24

we investigate the intersection of conspiracy

1:27

theories and spiritual influence to

1:29

uncover cults, pseudoscience and authoritarian extremism.

1:31

And today I can add to

1:34

that tagline that so much of

1:36

the social and political conflict we

1:38

study boils down to the

1:40

question, at whose expense

1:42

will you pursue your personal freedom

1:45

and what will you lose on that journey?

1:48

I'm Matthew Remsky. We

1:50

are on Instagram and threads at Conspiratory

1:52

Pod and you can access all of

1:54

our episodes ad free plus our Monday

1:56

bonus episodes on Patreon or

1:58

just our bonus episodes. via Apple subscriptions.

2:02

We're independent media creators and we appreciate

2:04

your support. My

2:06

guest today at long last is

2:08

historian Neil J. Young, who you

2:11

might know as the co-host of

2:13

the excellent Past Present Podcast, along

2:16

with our friend Natalia Petruzella and

2:18

Nicole Hemmer. His first

2:21

book from 2015 was

2:23

We Gather Together, the Religious Right and

2:26

the Problem of Interfaith Politics, and it

2:28

explored the rise of the religious right

2:30

and the challenges of building alliances amongst

2:33

conservative evangelicals, Catholics, and

2:35

Mormons. He writes for The

2:37

Washington Post, The Atlantic, CNN, The Los

2:39

Angeles Times, Vox, Political Slate, and The

2:41

New York Times. But he's here

2:44

today to talk about his new book out

2:46

just now called Coming Out Republican,

2:48

A History of the Gay Right.

2:50

Welcome to you, Neil. Thank

2:53

you, Matthew. It's great to be here. Now,

2:55

I hope you're okay as I gush for

2:57

a little bit over this book and encourage

2:59

listeners to go out and buy it. Is that

3:01

all right with you? Oh, please, gush away. I love it.

3:04

I'm not exaggerating or

3:07

blowing smoke. I read a

3:09

lot of good books. I talk to a lot of

3:11

great authors, but this is a book

3:14

that makes the project of intellectual

3:16

life worthwhile. You know,

3:18

there's history as fact, there's history

3:20

as storytelling, but then there's

3:22

history as felt experience. And you really managed

3:25

to do all three here in

3:27

a rich and layered and

3:29

deeply researched diorama of stories

3:31

that illuminate the lives of

3:33

conservative gay men as they

3:35

embody this original American paradox

3:38

I pinged it at the beginning, which

3:41

is whose expense or at whose expense

3:43

will you pursue personal freedom? So

3:46

in the broadest strokes, what

3:48

you've written is an account about

3:50

how beginning in the aftermath of the

3:52

Second World War, many American

3:54

gay men, often from socially

3:56

conservative and religious families from which they

3:59

had struggle to individuate, but not necessarily

4:01

rupture if they could help it, hitched

4:04

the wagon of their political hopes

4:06

to a Republican party they believed

4:09

would champion their privacy and individual

4:11

civil rights, but which eventually

4:13

led a culture war

4:15

against them. And

4:17

then even as that tide turned, many

4:20

of these entrepreneurs, community organizers,

4:23

and political strategists kept

4:25

their shoulders to the unforgiving wheel

4:27

of respectability and politics.

4:30

Is that a good summation, Neil?

4:32

I think that that's a really smart

4:35

interpretation of so much of this narrative.

4:37

Definitely it's a major theme of the

4:39

book, this notion of

4:41

respectability. And that notion and

4:44

the way it's employed by very

4:46

different actors changes a lot over

4:48

time, which I think is an

4:50

important part of the history here.

4:52

To that broader question, the 30,000-foot

4:54

question, I kind of

4:56

wanted to propose that when

4:58

any marginalized or stigmatized group

5:00

seeks dignity, it's

5:02

like they face a fork in the road. Are

5:05

they going to revolt against the basic power

5:07

structures of the dominant culture, or are they

5:10

going to assimilate into and master those same

5:12

structures? So in documenting the

5:14

history of the gay right, it

5:17

seems that you're really illuminating the

5:19

advancements, the compromises, and the regrets

5:21

of those that choose

5:23

respectability. Totally. And

5:26

you're right to remind us that this

5:28

is a very common debate

5:30

within so many different movements, especially

5:32

social movements. Think of debates within

5:35

the Civil Rights Movement or the

5:37

Women's Rights Movement. I think also

5:39

within the broader LGBTQ rights movement,

5:41

which path do we pursue for?

5:43

How do we show ourselves to

5:46

be deserving of the things that we're arguing

5:49

for? That's a commonality

5:51

across so many movements. Many

5:53

Republicans figure in

5:55

this history really interestingly because for

5:58

much of the history, with

6:00

a broader consensus of gay and

6:02

lesbian persons who believe that,

6:05

I'm more talking about the 50s, the 60s,

6:07

the 1970s here, who believe that in order

6:10

to have a visible presence in American

6:12

life, let alone to have any rights

6:14

granted to them, they have to act

6:16

and behave a certain way. That

6:19

becomes an argument that becomes

6:21

more and more conservative over time,

6:24

as it does in every social movement, but that

6:26

one that these gay Republicans are

6:29

particularly positioned to continue to

6:31

uphold, even as much of the

6:33

LGBTQ left has started to

6:35

dispense with it, or it becomes more of

6:37

a internal debate on the

6:39

left, where it remains a sort

6:42

of consistent philosophy for gay Republicans.

6:44

So I have a second top

6:46

line question, which is really a

6:48

proposition related directly to our beat

6:51

on conspiratuality, which is

6:53

that when one belongs to a marginalized group,

6:56

one will be targeted by conspiracy theories.

6:59

They will say that you are

7:01

corrupting the youth, ruining families, depressing

7:03

morale in the military, or erasing

7:05

the difference between men and women.

7:07

They will say that you have

7:09

an agenda, and in response,

7:11

you may attempt to ingratiate yourself to

7:13

say, no, I'm not like that, I'm

7:15

one of the good ones,

7:18

I'm one of the good gay men,

7:20

and so on, and this might not

7:22

work. Yes, although I think

7:24

it's not a surprising strategy, given

7:26

especially the degrees of

7:28

oppression and persecution on gay

7:31

persons for much of the period of history

7:33

I'm talking about, to say that the

7:35

things that I'm being charged with are completely

7:38

false. They have nothing to do with the

7:40

life that I'm leading, and let me show

7:42

you. Again, let me show you how respectable

7:44

I am, how patriotic I am, how upstanding

7:47

I am, how clean cut and

7:49

gender conforming I am. I mean,

7:51

these are all strategies. Again, not

7:53

only that gay Republicans are using,

7:55

especially in these early decades, but

7:57

that gay Republicans continue to assert.

8:00

through the decades, it works in many ways,

8:02

but it also doesn't work. And

8:05

I think it depends on who the audience

8:07

is and where these messages are effective and

8:10

where they weren't. And I

8:12

think a lot of the strategy of gay

8:14

Republicans was we're never going to reach the

8:16

far-right wing nuts of our own party or

8:18

of our own conservative

8:20

movement. But there's a

8:22

lot within the Republican Party who

8:25

are libertarians, who have sort of

8:27

different ideas of politics that we

8:29

can reach. And also there's a

8:31

broad swath of middle Americans who

8:33

are sort of moderates or independents

8:35

who we can shift and that

8:37

we can change their minds through

8:39

our conservative appearances, through our conservative

8:41

reputation. And so, you know, one

8:44

of the things I think is

8:46

interesting about this demographic

8:48

I'm writing about is the way in

8:50

which they employed different strategies with different

8:52

audiences and to see how they were

8:54

successful and where they weren't successful, what

8:57

sort of ways they moved progress

8:59

forward and other ways how

9:02

they accommodated a sort of backlash

9:05

conservatism that never went away.

9:07

Let's turn then to a couple of those

9:09

stories. There are so many in the book,

9:12

it's kind of hard to choose a few

9:14

or where to start. But

9:16

the two that I've chosen, I think, give

9:18

us a doorway into the entire world that

9:21

you reveal. There's one

9:23

story that expresses a philosophical and theoretical

9:25

paradox in gay conservative life. And

9:28

then there's a second that presents a kind of psychological

9:30

crisis. Now, the first one

9:32

comes in the chapter called For

9:34

God and Country, where you recount the life

9:36

and times of Leonard Matlovich. And to give

9:38

a sense of how catchy the prose is,

9:41

I'm going to read the opening graph if

9:43

that's okay with you. Pinned

9:45

on his Air Force Blues, technical

9:47

sergeant Leonard Matlovich wore a bronze

9:49

star and a purple heart alongside

9:51

a large array of military ribbons.

9:55

Underneath the medals still lodged inside

9:57

his body were other reminders from

9:59

his time Vietnam War. Metal

10:01

fragments embedded in his arm and torso

10:03

from a landmine he had stepped on

10:06

during his second tour of duty in

10:08

Da Nang. Most soldiers would have retired

10:10

from combat after that, but

10:12

after four months in the hospital, Matlovitch

10:15

promptly signed up for his third tour.

10:17

When he finally returned to the United

10:20

States, the shrapnel in metals marked him

10:22

as an American hero, but

10:24

even they couldn't protect him from what

10:26

the US military would do once

10:29

he made his announcement to the world. I

10:32

am a homosexual, read

10:34

the oversized headline on the September

10:37

8th, 1975 issue of Time magazine,

10:39

bearing a photograph of Matlovitch in

10:41

his Air Force uniform, making it

10:44

the first news magazine to feature

10:46

an openly gay person on its

10:48

cover. It's quite a moment, Neil.

10:50

You know, this was a shocking

10:52

moment. And one I didn't know

10:54

about before I researched this

10:56

book, but Matlovitch was considered

10:59

the most famous gay man in America

11:01

in the 1970s. Now, granted, there wasn't

11:03

a lot of competition, right? Because there

11:05

wasn't there weren't very many out gay

11:07

men. But he's famous

11:10

before Harvey Milk is famous. His announcement

11:12

had been planned out well in advance in

11:15

coordination with the ACLU. And

11:17

it was calculated to force the military into

11:19

discharging him in a way that would allow

11:21

him and his lawyers to challenge that discrimination

11:23

in court. And observers at

11:26

the time noted his perfect positioning

11:28

for the role. He's a decorated

11:31

veteran and patriot. His

11:33

masculinity seems to be unimpeachable.

11:36

But he wasn't exactly an ally to all

11:38

gay men, was he? No, and I don't

11:40

think that that would be a word he

11:42

would have even used for himself. Like, I

11:45

don't think that that was part of his

11:47

consciousness. He was a fierce individualist. I mean,

11:49

he was a conservative Republican,

11:51

and he had grown up in a

11:53

very conservative Southern family, a very

11:56

racist Southern family. He had dispensed

11:58

without racism himself. experiences he

12:00

had in the U.S. military, but he

12:03

retained a fierce commitment to what he

12:05

believed was individualism. And

12:07

he thought what he was doing was

12:09

he was pursuing his right to serve

12:12

in the U.S. military, which he believed

12:14

was a constitutional right that he had,

12:16

one that he thought would allow him

12:18

to be the upstanding patriot

12:21

that he believed himself to be, and

12:23

also that he obviously believed that, you

12:25

know, in securing this right, it would

12:27

extend to others. So he

12:29

knows and he believes that he's part of

12:31

something larger than just him, but he

12:34

doesn't imagine a sense of

12:36

politics that is expansive, that

12:40

allies him with others like him as

12:42

much as he just thinks, like, I'm

12:44

going to achieve this legal victory and

12:46

that'll benefit others as well. Well, I

12:48

think your summary statement says a lot

12:51

in the chapter. You write that he

12:53

hoped his public profile would show straight

12:55

Americans that gay men and women were

12:58

just like them, everyday folks

13:00

who loved their country and wanted

13:02

to defend it, not radicals who

13:04

wanted to remake every aspect of

13:06

American life. So I guess

13:08

the question is, was that a

13:10

naive hope? Yes and no. I

13:12

think in a lot of ways it aligns with what

13:15

a lot of folks on the LGBTQ left or the

13:17

gay left, as it were, in the 1970s were also

13:19

thinking. Again,

13:22

what we've talked about is, you

13:24

know, show yourself as honorable, as

13:26

respectable, as hardworking, doing the

13:28

right thing and let that shift Americans'

13:30

attitudes about us being promiscuous degenerates,

13:33

about being, you know, all the

13:35

sorts of things that gay men

13:37

and women were believed to be

13:39

in these years. And it was

13:41

successful. I mean, it's amazing how

13:43

much his public image shapes and

13:46

changes public perceptions about homosexual persons

13:49

in these years. But

13:51

also it's not enough,

13:53

right? I mean, he certainly doesn't win his

13:55

legal battle and his

13:57

visibility also inspires a large a

14:00

larger backlash that we see taking

14:02

place and just starting to form in

14:04

these same years that we know

14:06

really culminates or at least grows

14:08

to a sort of fever pitch in the 1980s for

14:12

a whole host of reasons, including the

14:14

emergence of HIV AIDS. But there's

14:16

a way in which he's both changing

14:19

public perceptions and

14:21

also reinvigorating a

14:24

deeply held homophobia in the country

14:26

that's stimulated by his

14:29

public presence and all the

14:31

attention he's getting. But I will say

14:33

that one other thing, and I think that this

14:35

is a consistent theme of the people I'm writing

14:37

about in this book and

14:39

of I think a particular strategy of

14:42

gay Republicans is that

14:44

they really had a long

14:46

view of history in mind, that

14:49

what they were doing was slowly developing

14:51

change and that this was going to

14:53

take a long time. And Leonard Matlevich,

14:55

he doesn't live to see, I mean,

14:57

he dies in the late 80s, so

14:59

he dies far

15:02

before there's the sort of

15:04

transformation of military policy, let alone all these

15:06

other things that he might have cared about.

15:10

But he's setting something in motion that I

15:12

think is really, really important. He's laying a

15:14

foundation upon which the end of

15:16

Don't Ask, Don't Tell several decades later is

15:19

built. We will return to the

15:21

backlash in a moment, but I

15:23

want to pick up on your

15:25

mention that his early years were

15:27

steeped in Southern racism. Because

15:30

as you mentioned, at a certain point, he

15:32

turned seemingly 180 degrees to begin

15:34

to learn

15:37

and take on the language of the civil rights

15:39

movement. But studying

15:41

the strategies of Martin Luther

15:43

King Jr. is not

15:46

really the same as developing an

15:48

intersectional working model of justice, is

15:50

it? Yeah, definitely not. And he

15:53

did not have an intersectional model

15:55

of justice at all. So he

15:57

grew up in a very racist family. He

16:00

lived most of his life in

16:02

Georgia, South Carolina, Florida. He

16:05

was sort of a typical white southern

16:07

racist of this period. The

16:09

military transforms his ideas. He sees

16:11

black soldiers that he

16:13

really admires fighting alongside him

16:15

in Vietnam. He has black

16:18

officers who are above him, who

16:20

he really respects. And this, to

16:23

his credit, really reshapes his mind and

16:25

his thinking. And he actually ends up,

16:27

when he comes back from the battlefront

16:29

and pursues his sort of

16:31

longer career in the military, he

16:33

is a race relations instructor. And

16:37

so he's teaching these courses about sort of

16:39

civil rights within the military structure when

16:41

he's also making these decisions about coming out

16:44

publicly. He however,

16:46

and I think that this is true for a

16:48

lot of gay Republicans, they

16:50

cite the civil rights movement

16:52

as a sort of justification for

16:54

their own cause. But it

16:56

doesn't mean they embrace

16:59

a politics that's rights-based

17:01

or that, as you say,

17:03

is intersectional. As

17:05

much as they just think, okay, there's been

17:07

the civil rights movement, there's been the women's

17:09

rights movement, we're next. You know, it's sort

17:11

of this notion of history. History is progress.

17:14

These things have happened. We are

17:16

tying ourselves to those traditions from

17:19

the standpoint that we're up next. Give us

17:21

our rights and leave us alone. This

17:24

isn't about, you know, let's connect

17:26

together and form a broader remaking

17:28

of American society. Part of what

17:31

he's resisting is this notion that,

17:33

you know, radical gay

17:35

liberation rhetoric will provoke a

17:37

more repressive backlash. But as

17:39

you've noted, backlash

17:42

comes nonetheless. I

17:44

wonder if you

17:47

think heteronormative culture will

17:49

strike back at the

17:52

socially acceptable or straight identified

17:54

gay men with a

17:57

kind of equal wrath to the

17:59

way that they strike at the radical because,

18:01

I mean, in one sense, it

18:03

might be said that guys like Matlavich

18:05

from a conservative point of view or

18:08

a socially conservative point of view are

18:10

lying, aren't they? That, you know, he

18:12

only looks like a real man, a

18:14

real patriot. And isn't that imagined deception

18:17

perhaps more dangerous? Yeah,

18:19

I think that that's absolutely a

18:22

response that someone like Matlavich can

18:25

generate. But I also think that like

18:27

this works in multiple ways. He was

18:29

seen as an American hero. I mean,

18:31

if you look at the coverage of

18:34

him, it was astonishing me to think

18:36

about like this is being written in 1975,

18:38

1976, when there's horrible public attitudes about homosexuality

18:42

and like all these articles are talking

18:44

about like what a masculine

18:46

hero this man and all these women

18:49

are being quoted saying, you know, if

18:51

he were straight, I'd want my daughter to marry him,

18:53

but I certainly would love him to be my next

18:55

door neighbor. So that is happening.

18:57

And that's, that's part of the

19:00

changing response that someone like him

19:02

is bringing about. And also, there

19:05

is a response

19:08

that I think you're right to

19:10

point us to, which is even

19:12

more inflamed, because how dare he

19:15

try and pass himself as

19:18

a hero? How dare he claim to be

19:20

masculine when he sleeps with men, right? How,

19:22

you know, it generates

19:25

an even stronger vitriol because

19:28

it's attached to the very

19:30

things that they say homosexuals

19:32

cannot be. And so

19:34

I think that that's the sort of

19:36

attention that you see in both his

19:38

life and his public representation and also

19:40

in the larger history here. Okay. So

19:42

the second story that I wanted to

19:44

focus on, John Hinson, maybe

19:47

you can give us the 101 on Hinson. Sure.

19:50

John Hinson was a man from

19:53

Southern Mississippi. He ran for Congress and

19:55

he wins in

19:58

the late 1970s. But

20:01

before that happened, he had worked in

20:03

Republican politics in Washington, DC for most of

20:06

the 1970s. All

20:08

the while he's doing this, he is having

20:11

sex with men in Washington,

20:13

DC. In Parks,

20:15

he's also someone who survives

20:18

the Cinema Follies fire, which was

20:20

a fire that happened

20:23

at a gay adult

20:26

theater in Washington, DC in the 1970s. It

20:29

killed nine closeted men,

20:32

and he was one of the few

20:34

survivors from that. So this was never

20:36

known until years later, but he's rescued

20:38

from the fire. He runs

20:40

for Congress. He's also at one point

20:43

arrested for having sex beside the

20:45

Iwo Jima Memorial, which was a

20:47

very popular pickup spot at the

20:50

time. He was doing whatever

20:52

he could to hide his secret, including

20:55

he has a fiancé while he's

20:57

running for Congress, who he is

20:59

constantly showing at campaign

21:02

events. And he's

21:04

not the only closeted gay

21:06

Republican who is presenting himself

21:08

as a social conservative in

21:11

this period. There's also another congressman named

21:13

Bob Bauman, who's married and has four

21:16

children and has this very public image

21:18

as a devout Catholic, and

21:20

certainly one of the leaders of the

21:22

social conservative movement that's taking shape in

21:24

the late 1970s. There's

21:27

also Terry Dolan, who is another closeted

21:29

gay man. He is single. He

21:31

doesn't pretend to be straight. But

21:34

Terry Dolan is the head of an

21:36

organization called the National Conservative Political Action

21:38

Committee, which is a

21:40

grassroots conservative organization that's very important

21:43

to the election of Ronald Reagan

21:45

in 1980 and also the movement

21:47

of social conservatism. All of these

21:50

men are choosing different strategies to

21:53

conceal their homosexuality. One

21:56

of those strategies I think that all of

21:58

them are using is a very aggressive conservative

22:01

politics and a very aggressive,

22:03

conservative reputation and conservative presentation.

22:05

That's what I want to

22:07

get to. And I just

22:09

have to compliment you and

22:11

say that you're very disciplined

22:14

in the book to stick with history and not

22:16

to veer too far into psychology, which

22:18

is good because you really could

22:20

go a long way down that

22:22

slippery slope. I

22:25

have this feeling in reading these stories

22:27

that the conflict between liberation

22:29

and compliance is this existential matter

22:31

for everyone and that your subjects

22:34

really illuminate how that happens and

22:36

what's at stake. But

22:38

with regard to Hinson and Bauman

22:40

and Dolan, when a

22:43

person is that terrified of

22:45

his own nature and how he will

22:48

be punished for it, does

22:50

it make sense that he would

22:52

legislate against his fellows to you?

22:55

Do these guys show us a hidden

22:58

reactionary principle that the repressed

23:00

person might want a society

23:02

in which he remains disciplined and his fears

23:04

remain at bay? Yeah, I think so. And

23:07

I think, think about in the case of

23:09

Bauman, who was also a devout

23:11

Catholic. So I think there's both the political and

23:14

the religious ways

23:18

in which discipline and strictures

23:20

on this life are

23:23

both upheld and engaged. And also in

23:25

the case of politics, he's

23:28

at the forefront of helping push an

23:31

anti-gay legislative agenda forward. I mean,

23:33

it's also striking that up

23:35

until this time, Congress had barely done anything

23:37

when it came to, not

23:40

even gay rights, but like there wasn't really

23:42

legislation that was punitive.

23:45

And he starts developing a series

23:48

of legislation that's designed to do exactly

23:50

that. Now, obviously there's a longer history

23:52

where the federal government, especially through the

23:54

Lavender Scare, has been a very repressive

23:56

force against homosexuals. But the sort of

23:59

later. 70s, early 80s, anti-gay

24:01

legislative politics. He's at the forefront of

24:03

that. And I think you're

24:06

right. I'm not a psychologist. So

24:08

I didn't really develop this

24:10

theme too deeply. It

24:12

was something that I grappled with as I wrote about him

24:14

and the others. Like, why are they doing this? You

24:17

know, he could have been a conservative congressman

24:20

who just didn't touch this sort of legislation,

24:22

but he's actually leading it. And he's a

24:24

leading spokesperson around it. What all is going

24:26

on there? Does he think this is actually

24:28

a way in which he covers

24:30

up his life and

24:33

it's part of the facade? And I

24:35

think it's partly that. But

24:37

is there also something like deeply

24:39

psychological at work here about his

24:41

own self-loathing, about his own self-acceptance?

24:43

I think that that is part

24:45

of it too. I had to

24:47

wonder whether these figures could

24:50

have been caught or still are

24:52

some of them in a feedback

24:55

loop of enacting policies that make

24:57

their own criminalized sexual activity more

25:00

arousing, more appealing in a way. Yeah,

25:03

I think that that's an interesting theory.

25:05

I'm not, again, a psychologist and certainly

25:07

not a sex therapist, but I

25:10

think that that is a very

25:12

possible interpretation of a lot of

25:14

this behavior. One of the things that I think maybe

25:16

helps us think about this in terms of Bob Bauman

25:18

was, so he's

25:21

eventually busted in an FBI

25:23

sting that's happening around a

25:25

sort of drug trafficking, sex

25:27

trafficking ring in

25:30

Washington, DC in the late 1970s that the

25:32

police and the FBI had been watching for

25:34

years. And Bauman

25:36

is arrested as part of this

25:38

bust because one of the sex

25:40

workers that he often went to

25:43

was arrested and that sex worker coughed

25:45

up Bauman's name knowing he's a congressman.

25:49

This will be a good name to cough up. But

25:51

one of the things that comes out is Bob

25:54

Bauman was notoriously going to this very

25:56

dingy gay bar that was known to

25:58

be a hang out and

26:01

he was driving there and parking his

26:03

car in front of this bar that

26:06

had a congressional license

26:08

plate on it. So he could

26:10

have been so easily caught years

26:12

before this FBI bust was

26:15

fully developed. And so what does that mean

26:17

that he took those risks?

26:20

Is that part of the erotic charge

26:23

that he was actually creating for himself?

26:25

Of danger? Of am I

26:27

getting away with this? Will I get away with this? And

26:30

I think also the politics he pursued

26:32

is like an aspect of that sort

26:34

of behavior additionally. Turning to

26:37

a much darker note, every aspect

26:39

of gay life in America changes

26:42

catastrophically with the HIV AIDS crisis.

26:45

There's a huge death toll. There's paralyzing fear.

26:48

It's a nightmare for dignity and

26:50

self-perception. So suddenly the, quote

26:52

unquote, corrupting influence of gay

26:54

men on American life is

26:56

now a medical or pathological

26:58

phenomenon. It's a material

27:01

reason to start talking about quarantining

27:03

men or tattooing infected men on

27:05

the ass, thanks to Bill Buckley.

27:07

That was his idea. But

27:10

there's also a kind of unexpected twist within

27:12

gay politics at the height of the crisis,

27:15

which is that it's gay Republicans who

27:18

start advocating for greater

27:21

personal responsibility in places like San Francisco.

27:23

They start arguing that strong measures have

27:25

to be taken to prevent the spread

27:28

of the virus. And

27:30

really it's the left-leaning gay men who

27:32

reject any notion of restricting personal freedom

27:34

and pleasure. And it

27:37

just seems like this is

27:39

interesting in relation to

27:41

some of the political alignments that

27:43

polarized around public health during COVID.

27:45

Totally. And I'll just add that

27:48

I was writing this chapter

27:50

and actually this whole book at the

27:52

height of COVID lockdown. So it

27:54

was really interesting for me, especially to

27:57

write about HIV AIDS and these ideas

27:59

about public health. In the 1980s, as I sat

28:01

inside my house in 2020 and 2021, gay Republicans show

28:09

a really fascinating development in this

28:11

period because in the first

28:13

half of the decade and first of

28:15

all, we should say that the heart

28:17

of gay Republicans, really the birthplace of

28:20

gay Republicanism is San Francisco, which may

28:22

surprise listeners. Half of my book is

28:24

set in California, which

28:26

read the book and you'll understand more about

28:28

what the history there is. But in

28:31

these years, the largest gay Republican

28:33

organization in the country is this

28:35

group called Concerned Republicans for Individual

28:37

Rights, which is founded in 1977

28:40

in San Francisco. It's now known today as

28:42

Log Cabin Club of San Francisco. It has

28:46

250 members in the mid 80s.

28:48

It's the largest Republican organization period in

28:50

the city of San Francisco in this

28:52

time. And it is a fiercely

28:55

libertarian organization. And what that means

28:57

in the early years of the

29:00

HIV AIDS crisis is the folks in

29:02

this group believe that the government shouldn't

29:04

tell them what to do with their

29:06

bodies. You know, I know the individual

29:08

risk I can take. I have bodily

29:10

autonomy. I can make my own personal

29:12

decisions about my life and my

29:14

body and my and my I

29:17

can make my own medical decisions. And also

29:19

the government shouldn't shut down the bathhouses, which

29:21

is what the San Francisco Public Health Department

29:25

was trying to do. And gay Republicans are

29:28

at the front lines of stopping the bathhouse

29:30

closure in the 1980s. However,

29:33

by the late 1980s, when

29:36

the epidemic has become so deadly,

29:38

and it's become particularly devastating for

29:41

gay Republicans, I mean, much

29:43

of the club dies away, they start to

29:46

shift their politics. And this

29:48

this idea of personal freedom, which originally they

29:50

meant I can do whatever I want with

29:52

my body, don't tell me what to do

29:54

with my body becomes a different

29:56

sort of discourse of personal

29:59

responsibility. and I

30:01

should become a monogamous person and

30:03

we should advocate

30:05

for monogamy within the broader

30:08

gay community. And this is really the basis

30:10

by which they start arguing in the late

30:13

1980s for the right to

30:15

same-sex marriage. We need to have

30:17

same-sex marriage because the institution of

30:19

marriage is a conservative one. It

30:22

will domesticate and tame gay men.

30:24

This is what they're saying. This

30:26

will help curtail the disease. And

30:29

also, if we do this, then

30:32

again, this goes into the politics

30:34

of respectability. We'll no longer

30:36

be demonized. We'll no longer

30:38

be vilified. And we'll show ourselves again

30:40

to be good, upstanding citizens and other

30:42

rights will be extended to us. And

30:44

also, we're going to now start attacking

30:46

the LGBT or the

30:48

gay left for being these

30:51

hedonistic, promiscuous, all

30:53

the sorts of things that the American right

30:55

is saying about gay persons in general. I'm

30:57

just waiting for the news as to whether

31:00

or not your PR is going to be

31:02

able to set you up with an interview

31:04

on Fox News so that we can watch

31:06

the brains explode when you go through

31:08

this story because this is such a

31:10

complete inversion of what we're fed from

31:13

the conservative movement today.

31:16

I wanted to pick up on something

31:18

that I just realized in listening to

31:20

you speaking about the heart of the

31:22

modern gay Republican movement being in San

31:24

Francisco. It was very clearly drawn

31:26

out in the book that this had so

31:29

much to do with entrepreneurship

31:32

that coming out of the 50s and

31:34

60s, your chances

31:36

for steady employment as an openly

31:38

gay man were very, very low. And so what

31:40

would you do? You would open a shop. You

31:43

would open a restaurant. You

31:46

would become a self-made person. And

31:48

I think that really unlocked the

31:50

core of libertarianism that you're trying

31:53

to really demonstrate in this book.

31:56

Totally. And this was a big part of the

31:58

common element of the book. those who joined the

32:01

gay Republican clubs in California, both in

32:03

San Francisco and in Los Angeles and

32:05

Southern California, lots and

32:07

lots of entrepreneurs. Again, many of

32:09

them had also moved to California

32:11

from other states, as many

32:13

a Californian has been transplanted here, like yours

32:15

truly. They came out west for job opportunities,

32:18

and also because many of them were sort

32:20

of fleeing the repression that they had experienced

32:22

on the East Coast or in the Midwest,

32:24

that they could easily be fired from their

32:27

jobs if it was found out that they

32:29

were gay. So they move out

32:31

west to a more tolerant environment in

32:33

general, and also they develop their own

32:35

small businesses. And with that,

32:38

they sort of have a libertarian politics.

32:40

And one of the log cabin clubs

32:43

on their newsletter, they had some

32:46

motto along the lines of keeping the

32:48

government out of our bedroom and out

32:50

of our wallets. And those were deeply

32:53

linked together in the minds

32:55

of the sorts of persons in California

32:57

who were drawn to gay republicanism in

32:59

these years. So bringing us up to the

33:01

present, the gay right

33:04

is doing very little, and sometimes

33:06

working against the interests of

33:08

trans people in terms of legal

33:10

protections. And this is

33:13

happening in an era in which it really

33:15

counts. So from Andrew

33:17

Sullivan to Andy Noe to

33:19

Dave Rubin, the

33:21

idea is that trans people are

33:23

some kind of threat to gay

33:25

men. How do they

33:27

reason that out? Yeah, this is a

33:30

challenging topic to write about,

33:32

in part because this aspect of

33:34

American life right now is changing

33:37

so quickly. And in

33:39

writing a book, especially as a

33:41

historian, it becomes often

33:44

uncomfortable and awkward to write about stuff that's

33:46

happening. This unfolding as you're writing, because you

33:48

want the vantage point of 20 years of

33:50

history. And I was

33:52

finishing up this book a good year before it

33:54

came out, and knew so much of this story

33:56

was even going to change between now

33:58

and then. I think

34:01

the trans politics issue has been

34:03

something really fascinating to watch on the right

34:06

and also particularly on the gay right. And

34:08

you know those three names that you mentioned,

34:10

I would say even among the three, they

34:12

have different positions here. I mean, Andrew Sullivan

34:14

really believes and says over

34:17

and over again that he supports trans rights

34:19

and I think you see that in a

34:21

lot of his writings, especially in terms of

34:23

what it means for the Supreme Court decision

34:25

and other legislation that he's been an advocate

34:27

for and he really strikes

34:30

a clear line between what he

34:32

says are trans rights for adults and

34:34

what he and others call this radical

34:36

gender ideology that's being forced on children.

34:38

But some of the other names you

34:40

mentioned, I think they don't sort of

34:42

break apart these politics in those ways

34:44

as much as they sort of just

34:46

invoke a trans threat that

34:49

is happening, that's being forced

34:51

on the American people in general and also

34:53

that a lot of them argue is

34:56

a threat to gay men because they

34:58

see trans politics as really an ideology

35:01

of gender and of

35:04

an ideology that seeks to actually

35:06

destroy gender and to destroy the

35:08

gender binary. And if that is

35:10

the case, they argue, then maleness

35:12

and femaleness no longer exist. No

35:14

one will ever be called a

35:16

woman again, no one will ever

35:18

be called a man again. Like

35:20

this is the future that they're imagining and

35:23

if men can't say they're men and if

35:26

homosexuals can't say that what

35:28

they are attracted to is

35:30

another biological man, then this

35:32

is a threat to homosexuality

35:34

itself. And it's such a

35:36

fascinating line of

35:38

argumentation to advance because it's

35:40

of course being directed to

35:42

conservative audiences and

35:45

to uphold homosexuals as a

35:47

threatened vulnerable minority

35:50

group that is endangered

35:52

by the emergence

35:54

of trans politics and

35:57

that that argument again is being directed to

35:59

a conservative audience. and it is quite

36:02

successful. I think it's really working.

36:04

It's just fascinating to watch. It's

36:06

not like gender essentialism ever worked

36:08

in gay men's favor prior, did

36:10

it? Yeah, I

36:13

don't think so. But I mean, I think that

36:15

what's really interesting here is that gay

36:17

men are being upheld

36:20

as victims of this among

36:22

an audience who has never

36:25

really been historically interested in

36:28

thinking about the vulnerability of

36:30

gay men previously. So it's

36:32

wild to watch. My last

36:34

two questions are about how

36:36

I think we all relate

36:38

to this subject matter. But

36:41

I also want to talk about how

36:43

you relate to it because this

36:46

book maintains a very solid

36:48

third-person omniscient historian's distance. There's

36:51

no first-person gay male historian

36:53

positionality to be found in

36:55

it. There's no caveats, apologies,

36:57

positionality statements. There's no coming

36:59

out memories. And I

37:02

think this distance is a consequential

37:04

choice that, in my opinion,

37:06

gives the book a lot of mainstream

37:08

capital because it does not feel as

37:10

though it was written from the margins,

37:12

even if it was. And

37:15

because of that, I think

37:17

its stories feel broadly relatable

37:19

and normal, if

37:22

I can say that. And I'll

37:24

even say that the choice honors

37:26

the subject in a way because

37:30

it feels like it comes from a slightly different

37:32

era. It seems to strike the attitude of, you

37:34

know, my personal life is none of your business.

37:36

It doesn't have any bearing on the matter here.

37:38

So I want to see if you can just

37:41

tell us a little bit about making that choice.

37:44

I love it. My narrator's voice is

37:47

a gay Republican because we don't know what

37:50

all is involved in my private life,

37:52

right? In part, it's a function of

37:54

my publisher and the

37:57

way that this book developed as, you know, part

37:59

of its trade arm for a university press. And

38:01

I think it might have been a bit of

38:03

a different book if it had been with a

38:05

different publisher, but as a historian

38:07

and as someone, as a scholar who

38:10

is writing for the trade arm of

38:12

a university press, I really sort of

38:14

maintained that historian voice in this. And

38:16

I thought about sort of personalizing my

38:19

introduction, inserting myself into it, but

38:21

that felt like it just didn't feel

38:23

like the right choice given the rest

38:26

of the book having like no sense

38:28

of me as the author, inserting

38:31

myself into the text. And

38:34

yet at the same time as the author, I

38:37

feel deeply on the page of

38:40

every page of this book, I realized

38:42

for a reader, they're not

38:45

going to pick up on that necessarily. But I

38:48

will say if there's questions about like

38:50

my biography and how that ties to

38:52

this project, I grew up

38:54

in a Republican family. I always knew

38:56

I was gay. I was always interested

38:58

in politics and conservatism. That's all shaping

39:01

the choices I make here as an

39:03

author. I'm not a gay Republican. Actually,

39:05

one of the things that's been really

39:07

funny and also oftentimes quite

39:09

disappointing is how

39:11

people are assuming that I

39:14

have written a memoir. So I'm getting

39:16

especially like nasty DMs or nasty messages

39:18

on Twitter or to my email of

39:21

like, how dare you and you're so

39:23

messed up and all this sort of

39:25

stuff. And I'm like, people, please read

39:27

the full title of this book. Just

39:30

take a second to think about it. This is

39:32

not a memoir. And even if it were, it's

39:34

not nice that people

39:36

would so viciously respond to me. But I'm

39:39

not sure if I'm answering your question, but it

39:42

was a deliberate choice to

39:44

sort of keep a distant

39:46

historical narrator's voice through this

39:48

project. But also, I Think

39:51

one of the great opportunities of getting to

39:53

talk about this book now that it's out

39:55

in the world. And places like podcasts and

39:57

in the articles that I'll be writing is.

40:00

To sort of make myself a little

40:02

bit more of the story of the

40:04

work itself, I'm how this project came

40:06

to be. I'm and how how I

40:09

relate to that. I have to say

40:11

that the question comes out of this

40:13

feeling that there's a deep empathy on

40:16

every page that just has to come

40:18

from lived experience. And so that's really

40:20

my last question. You know you approach

40:22

your subjects in a way that has

40:25

to be guided by your own experiences,

40:27

how they reckoned with their conservative families,

40:29

their communities, You know,

40:31

and you do play your cards

40:34

close to the chest when it

40:36

comes to over judgments on how

40:38

the gay right navigates that sick

40:40

it. But by the end as

40:42

you build up to like very

40:45

cursed spectacles like that oath you

40:47

know groups like gays against groomers

40:49

which weaponize white masculinity against those

40:51

who are more marginalized, you do

40:54

point a cautionary finger at moral

40:56

bankruptcy. So maybe we can finish

40:58

with what would you. Say too

41:00

Young gay men out there. About

41:03

how they can help see these things

41:05

more clearly, how they can help build

41:07

a better world. Yasir saw to say

41:09

I think that's absolutely right that the

41:12

empathy I have for many of the

41:14

characters in The Spark, specially in the

41:16

early decades, is one that I think

41:18

is. Tied to their

41:20

relate ability to my own life and

41:22

and my own experiences in a growing

41:24

up in a concert, a family conserve

41:27

community of thinking about the ways and

41:29

west's one makes choices to keep those

41:31

relationships and tact and to grow and

41:33

develop. Mom and I think again a

41:35

lot of the historical actors here I

41:38

could really relate to and sympathize with

41:40

the decisions they were making, even if

41:42

I don't necessarily agree with her in

41:44

a broader politics and terms of you

41:46

know what what I say to gay.

41:49

Guy young men men Today I

41:51

think that this book especially in

41:53

the and is a cautionary to

41:55

how about the limits of individual

41:58

and some as Mrs. I. Think

42:00

that there is an admirable

42:02

component to the individualistic tradition,

42:04

an American history and the

42:07

one I think of the

42:09

story of Salts shows a

42:11

lot of the the benefits

42:13

of of are sort have

42:16

individualistic model I think we're

42:18

seeing. I'm especially now the

42:20

dangers of an overly individualistic

42:22

mindset. This is a time

42:24

for especially game and to

42:27

recognize dad our history has

42:29

been. Tied to a broader

42:31

sense of community, I'm and our broader

42:33

sense of community has given us the

42:36

right so we have benefited from. and

42:38

to think about what that means for

42:40

thinking about others who are much more

42:42

vulnerable and this moment a massive sort

42:44

of pull up. It's the latter behind

42:47

us, but to think about who right

42:49

now is vulnerable among our choices can

42:51

save the politics of now because I

42:53

think one of the things you're really

42:55

seeing on the Right is or weaponization

42:58

of homosexuality. It's really. Dangerous.

43:00

Because of the way in which of

43:03

sort of positions gay rights as accomplished

43:05

and I just adjust in the closing

43:07

pages that we might be skeptical of

43:09

those sorts of messages him and and

43:12

and the sort of politics or habit

43:14

And Neil T on Thank you so

43:16

much for your time today are it's

43:19

a fantastic book. Congratulations on a great

43:21

achievement Thank you for having me. This

43:23

is what's up with. This is such

43:25

a wonderful conversation and I really appreciate

43:28

you have a me Oss. Something

43:40

he was is now that that's me thinking is

43:43

a rate based on one thousand one based on

43:45

the job of the truth. The Highway Like a

43:47

race. Town and Soda like a

43:49

passing. Thought. Theory based

43:52

on anyone else did on based on. This

43:55

bad loans from a. Lesser

43:57

California says he didn't have the decency to determine a

43:59

set of. which vary by state. In some states, participation

44:01

in drive-wise allows all states to use their driving data for

44:03

purposes of rating. While in some states, your rate could increase

44:05

with high-risk driving, generally safer drivers will save with drive-wise. All

44:08

state-bearing casualty insurance company in Philly, North Park, Illinois.