Virtually every nasty anti-gay slur you can think of is recited in
a 1985 newsletter on "today's homosexual movement, its goals, its political, its lifestyle" from the American Legislative Exchange Council and recently obtained by People for the American Way. In places, it's almost funny: Did you know that there are "six separate groups" of "homosexuals"? Yup. "The blatant, the secret lifer, the desperate, the adjusted, the bisexual and the situational." But while 1985 was a long time ago, and ages in the context of the fight for LGBT rights in a way that makes the ALEC newsletter's unabashed bigotry seem almost quaint, it's important to put this in the context of what ALEC does. What ALEC does is legislation, and, loony claims about S&M-related homicide aside, this document is all about blocking gay rights in the law.
The threats from the "homosexual movement" ALEC detailed in 1985 included a federal bill under which:
Private employers will no longer be able to decide whom they can hire. Private professionals such as doctors and dentists cannot refuse to hire a homosexual despite possible health risks. Landlords will be forced to rent their property to a homosexual couple even if the landlord's family shares the same building.
In other words, the LGBT rights ALEC was mobilizing against back in 1985 include battles we are still fighting, with employers allowed to fire people for being gay in 29 states and House Republicans blocking the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act.
This is one area where justice is winning at an accelerating pace and where surely even ALEC wouldn't today be talking—publicly, anyway—about limp wrists and pedophiles. But, as ALEC promotes anti-worker, anti-immigrant, anti-environment, and anti-woman laws, let's remember that this is what ALEC is. It's about hate and fear and discrimination wrapped up as policy analysis for lawmakers.
