In Harper’s 1947 magazine, Henry S. Commager wrote his article, “Who is Loyal to America” stressing on the argument of the anticommunist movement that promoted a new definition of loyalty. In this article Commager states some of the issues that the United States did was conform its patterns of loyalty to radically different ones than they have been in the past. This is a problem because it not only disregarded the Americans that were loyal, but it changed the definition entirely to conform to people who were disloyal to our nation. This led to much discrimination towards people during this time because the nation was in fear of communism. The Lavender Scare was overlooked by the American people because it only affected homosexuals working in …show more content…
In the late 1940s to the late 1960s thousands of homosexuals working for the government were persecuted. The reason these people were persecuted was because they were seen as being radical. They believed that if were a homosexual then you had a chance to be easily blackmailed by people to get information out of you, that your morals were weak, that you lacked emotional stability, therefore you were suitable to be working in government. The fear of communism had shifted to the fear of homosexuality when Alger Hiss was accused of being a communist spy by Whittaker Chambers. Chambers was also accused of having been engaged in a number of homosexual affairs. Once this hit the media, everyone believed that Alger Hiss and Whittaker Chambers had homosexual relations and that they were both communist spies. This led to accusations of homosexuals being weak and easily targeted because of the psychological mal adjustment that supposedly led them to being communist. To be communist was a huge security risk for the American government because during the Cold War the United States was trying to do everything they could to stop the spread of communism. If being homosexuality meant that you were more prone to be a communist, then the United States felt as though they need to get every single one out of them. The idea of having someone who was “flawed” or easily identified as a homosexual, meant that a communist spy could …show more content…
Many people felt discriminated against because they did not conform to the governments views. I believe that the Cold War definitely caused a force of change for the American citizens because the civil rights reform was a step towards a desegregated nation. The Truman Administration worked its way towards passed two executive orders that would desegregate federal employment and the armed forces. One of the reasons this was passed was because it contradicted the ideals that the United States promoted. When the Soviet Union knew that the military was segregated, they used it as propaganda to show other nations that the United States was not doing what they were encouraging. If other nations saw this, then they were more likely to go to communism because they would not trust a nation who was doing the opposite of what they say they supported. Another example is the Brown v. Education case that was much televised. Brown v. Education was fighting for the segregation in schools to end. The Truman Administration let a group of African American students go into an all-white school. Although this was extremely dangerous, it was the start to a new nation that would do what they say. The government made sure that this was televised and that his troops would protect these children in the school. The civil rights reform was a start to a very different America that would slowly but surely