Night-shift reporters do what the desk tells them to. And this night, late in 1991, a sneering little bully of an assistant city editor I thought of as “Quartz” ordered me to get myself over to the Town Hall police station.
“The cops are having a meeting with the LGBTQ+ community,” he said, not really using that last term but a common slur we don’t have to repeat today.
I went. The night is seared into my mind for the pure slapstick quality. The police, embarrassed, formal, had actually brought a rape specialist — the cops’ thinking no doubt being, “gays=sex crimes” — to talk to the group. They did ask about the safety concerns of what we still called the homosexual community, and those gathered responded in one voice: We’re afraid of the police.
As Windy City Times columnist Paul Varnell eloquently put it that night: “I’ve been arrested and I’ve been mugged, and frankly I prefer being mugged.”
At the time, as a night reporter, my interaction with what is now thought of as the LGBTQ+ community came through protests — AIDS awareness, Act-Up, Silence=Death vigils around the governor’s Chicago residence. But that was only one phase of a long history.
The Chicago Sun-Times, published since February 1948, has reflected and led society’s slow integration of sexualities that depart from traditional heterosexual male/female roles. (As well as, sometimes, lagged behind.) This being our 75th anniversary as a daily newspaper, and Pride Month, it’s a good time to look back.
The word “homosexual” didn’t appear in the paper until May 1948, in an AP report of a “homosexual ring” charged with sodomy at the University of Missouri. Gays tended to appear in print related to crime or in reviews of edgy books and plays, with an occasional vice story, such as Mayor Martin Kennelly closing a couple of bars for “homosexual activities.”
Of course, no period is as uniform as it seems at a remove. There is a story in 1950 quoting the Kinsey report that “homosexual contacts accounted for as much as 22.6 percent of the total sexual outlet of bachelor men from 31 to 35 years old” and the “Kinsey figures on women it can be anticipated will show an even greater incidence of homosexuality among women.” The news is delivered plainly and without sensation.
Advice, sympathy from Ann Landers
The most important writer at the paper changing attitudes about gays and lesbians was Eppie Lederer, known to the world as Ann Landers, who wrote a widely syndicated advice column.
“Dear Ann Landers,” a letter published in the Sun-Times in 1961 begins, “I’m a happily married man who needs an outside opinion....”
A childhood friend had moved to town; brilliant, talented, thoughtful, kind.
“The problem is, he’s a homosexual,” the letter continued. “His effeminate manner, his haircut as well as his flamboyant manner of dress leaves no room for speculation.”
The writer wanted to invite the man to dinner, but his wife forbade him even to be seen talking to his old friend. “It will ruin us, socially,” she said.
“I feel like a heel ignoring him,” the man wrote. “Please give me your thinking.”
Today, Ann Landers’ response at first might seem unsympathetic, even shocking.
“You wouldn’t snub a friend if he was crippled by polio, would you?” she began. “Well your boyhood friend is an emotional cripple.”
Then, she made a point that was radical at the time.
“Many homosexuals lead useful lives and enrich society through their creative efforts,” she wrote. “A person so afflicted, if he behaves in a socially acceptable manner, should not be insulted or snubbed.”
It was the first time she had addressed the topic in almost six years on the job, and the response was enormous. The Sun-Times ran a page.
“I am thoroughly disgusted with you,” a reader from Cleveland wrote. “The idea of a woman of your position standing up for queers!”
“Your column about homosexuals was like a beacon of light in a dark world,” a reader from Los Angeles wrote.
Landers would continue to argue for acceptance for decades.
Other voices amplified by the Sun-Times mocked the gay community. In 1986, conservative columnist Joseph Sobran, in an essay headlined “Homosexuality isn’t healthy,” attacked a Newsweek story, “Growing Up Gay,” that highlighted the pain caused by taunts and abuse, calling it an “object lesson in wrongheaded liberal compassion.”
“Alcoholism, like homosexuality, is generally recognized as a disorder. We disapprove of both as moral habits,” he wrote. “Is our attitude toward homosexuality a ‘prejudice?’ Then so is all inherited moral judgment. Most people are ‘prejudiced’ against burglary.”
The Illinois Gay and Lesbian Task Force picketed the Sun-Times after that, holding signs demanding “Fair Journalism” and demanding an apology.
While toleration is still fought in some quarters of the country, I doubt the paper would print the opinions of a Sobran today.
Two moms, four kids
One moment I look back on as indicative of the slow change happened in 2012. Then-editor Andrew Herrmann asked me to write something for Mother’s Day illustrating just how hard the job of being a mother could be. I knew exactly what he was looking for and asked my friends on Facebook to nominate the most challenged mother they knew.
Someone volunteered a woman with newborn triplets and a 3-year-old. That seemed just the ticket. But a bit of pre-interview was in order. In our talk, I mentioned to the mom that I wanted to be at her house when her husband left for work. She interjected that there was no husband; her partner is another woman. I was already known as someone with more sympathy to the LGBTQ+ community than perhaps was typical, and I worried my boss would think I had sought out this particular subject deliberately, as a political statement. So I mentioned to him that I had put out a call for a mother with her hands full, the perfect candidate had been presented, and she happened to be a mom with newborn triplets and a toddler who was also a lesbian. What should I do?
”You’re always saying this is normal,” Herrmann replied. “Treat it as if it were normal.”
Over the past 36 years, I’ve written dozens of stories on the gay community — I’m proud to have written our first look at the Chicago trans community, in 1992. I posted a ”greatest hits” of excerpts on my blog when I was inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame in 2013.
As to why, the best explanation is something I told the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Journalists Association. It was around the time I was reporting on the cops in the Town Hall district, and I gave some kind of talk. When it came time for questions, the first was: “But you’re not gay!” Which I took to mean, “So why do you care about this?” I thought for a moment.
”I think I come to this from a Jewish perspective,” I replied. “I view you as another loathed minority trying to get through the day.”
The “loathed” part has certainly ebbed in the passing years. But with books exploring gay themes being yanked off shelves and the existence of unashamed prejudice, it’s a subject that will be controversial for a long time to come and one that the Sun-Times will continue to cover with all the honesty and compassion it can muster.
