United States LGBT History for 1948
President Harry S. Truman
National
The New York Times refuses advertisements for Gore Vidal’s third novel, The City and the Pillar, which tells the story of a young man coming to terms with his homosexuality. Today the novel is considered to be a landmark novel in American literature about the gay experience.
Oregon
New York Governor Thomas Dewey, in an upset, defeats former Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen in the Oregon Republican primary for President. Dewey’s campaign is managed by the large Portland advertising agency of Joseph Gerber, who had been one of the men involved in the 1912 Vice Clique Scandal in Portland. One of the features of the campaign is the introduction of the modern Presidential debate format, created by Gerber, used for the first time in Salem and broadcast nationwide on radio.
National
Weaver W. Adams was a LGBT Chess player that won his last tournament in 1948. In addition to his competitive playing he wrote about his experiences and his strategies to win the national championships.
California
In Perez v. Sharp, the California Supreme Court becomes the first state high court to declare a ban on interracial marriage to be unconstitutional. In 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Loving v. Virginia, overturns all state bans on interracial marriage, declaring that the “freedom to marry” belongs to all Americans.
Washington D.C.
Congress enacted the first sodomy law in the District of Columbia, which established a penalty of up to 10 years in prison or a fine of up to $1,000 for sodomy. Also included with this sodomy law was a psychopathic offender law and a law "to provide for the treatment of sexual psychopaths in the District of Columbia, and for other purposes."
State equality and discrimination bills
National
Kinsey’s Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (The Kinsey Report) is published, bringing the taboo subject of homosexuality up for debate in the United States. Kinsey reports that 37% of men he interviewed had participated in homosexual behavior at least once. Based on his research, Kinsey proposes that sexual orientation lies on a continuum from exclusively homosexual to exclusively heterosexual. It sold more than 250,000 copies and was translated into a dozen languages.
Oregon
Portland police dedicate an article in their publication to the city’s “sex deviate problem.” They handled “perverts” by sending a “squad of officers” to parks and “other public meeting places, where perverts have been known to congregate,” and obtaining detailed descriptions of both them and their cars. This information then was compiled and cross indexed in police records to aid in apprehending offenders reported by “children.”
New York
New state regulation prohibits bars from becoming rendezvous or hang-outs for homosexuals.
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