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Full Article: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/27/gay-history-paranoia-conspiracy-reagan-kirchick-excerpt-00035193

More of an amusing read than anything, which can be summed up as panic surrounding a group of Republicans over supposed gay people surrounding and controlling Ronald Reagan (and maybe Reagan himself is bi?), starting with one drunk guy putting his hands on drunk Congressman's knee in a car and ending with said Congressman hiding from the supposed "right-wing homosexual assassins working on behalf of Ronald Reagan" he thought would come after him for spurning the guy's supposed advance.

It sounds hilarious, like the plot of some campy movie, but people really took it seriously to the point that it led to a Washington Post investigation, was a probable factor in the selection of Reagan's Vice-Presidential nomination, and possibly kept one accused gay man out of the administration entirely.

To me, the really interesting part is how the Post's investigation played out - their restraint against publishing it really shows a drastically different media landscape in a lot of different ways compared to today.

I think the difference is that back then news outlets wanted to be seen as serious, so publishing wild and largely unsubstantiated claims would have harmed their brand. Now news outlets will post just the fact that wild and largely unsubstantiated claims were made to get views online to get ad dollars. And I guess it worked...I mean, we read it, right? lol

Or perhaps rather that there are enough news outlets and independent journalists that someone would eventually publish it, so there's much less incentive to sit on things as a result, and leaks can go to others until someone does publish.

I'm sure even back then there was some tabloid that would have ran with it...The Inquirer or something. Not anything that anyone would take seriously, but still.