FIFTY YEARS OF PREJUDICE IN THE MEDIA This article is adapted and excerpted from a research paper (R-21, September 1998) published by the Kennedy School of Government of When journalists first came to the story of homosexuality at the end of World War II, the stigma surrounding the subject was far greater than anything that exists today. All the major religions condemned it as a sin against God and nature. Psychiatrists treated it as a serious mental disorder. Almost every state in the nation had a law against it, with many calling for a prison term for convicted homosexuals. And Americans generally didn't talk about it, at least in public. During the fifty years since then, social attitudes toward and "expert" judgments about gays and lesbians have changed dramatically-and news coverage about gays and lesbians has to some extent mirrored these changing attitudes and judgments. But the degree of fairness and accuracy in reporting has also been characterized--and compromised--by the persistence of prejudice against us. In The Anatomy of Prejudices, Elisabeth Young-Bruehl distinguishes between the expression of prejudice toward gays and lesbians and the expression of prejudice toward other groups, arguing that, in the former case, the identification of a person's homosexuality is not used merely as a cue to some faulty generalization about him or her, as it is in other cases (African Americans are criminals; Jews are greedy; women are irrational). Rather, the identification of a person's homosexuality is the very basis for the condemnation. When it comes to gays and lesbians, Young-Bruehl writes, "the category itself--and whatever it means to the individual using it--is the main accusation." In gossip, this form of prejudice occurs in the simple statement, "He's gay" or "She's a lesbian." In the media, it appears ...
