ABSTRACT
We now know as much as can probably ever be known about the U.S. Navy’s campaign against homosexuals at Newport. As often happens in complex and controversial historical incidents such as this, even with massive documentation available, differences in perception, personal or professional prejudice, faulty memory, and intentional or inadvertent misstatements cloud reality. Moreover, the lenses through which we observe these past events lack sufficient perspective to place them in precisely the correct context. Nevertheless, the impact of the scandal on those who participated in it can be measured; most important, the Newport anti-gay campaign provides perspectives on the emergence of a self-conscious gay community in the United States and on the persecution of gay men in America, especially, in the U.S. Navy.
