Secretary of State John Kerry released a statement on January 9th apologizing for the discrimination of LGBT employees in the State Department. The apology followed after Kerry received a letter from Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland asking for an official apology for the Lavender Scare.
The Lavender Scare was a massive purge of homosexual government employees that took place during the 1950’s as a result of the Cold War. This was due to the fear that a homosexual employee would reveal national secrets if the communist blackmailed them using the employees’ sexuality. Thousands were fired or forced to resign and anyone perceived a “sexual pervert” would not be allowed to hold government employment.
This policy was never officially expelled until 1995 when President Bill Clinton signed Executive Order 12968 into effect. The order stated that “The United States Government does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, or sexual orientation in granting access to classified information.”
While it’s incredibly important that Kerry apologized for the mistakes of the U.S. government in the past, that does not mean that workplace discrimination has ended.
In fact, in many states a person can still be fired or denied a government job on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.
Only twenty of the fifty states have laws in order to protect people on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in all employment, public and private. There are sixteen states where one can actually be fired for a government job on the same premise as those fired in the 1950’s during the Lavender Scare. So while, an apology is long overdue for the victims of the Lavender Scare, we as Americans must learn from the actions in the past and make sure the same mistakes do not happen again.
