Comments on: The Secret Court

By: Prestashop Templates

Prestashop Templates — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 02:02:34 +0000

Extra Reading…

[...]we like to honor other sites on the web, even if they aren’t related to us, by linking to them. Below are some sites worth checking out[...]…

By: Jim

Jim — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 22:34:52 +0000

Ba shassanch eisean.

By: Brian Jones

Brian Jones — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 18:32:31 +0000

Oscar Wilde is English now?

By: Eric Osterberg

Eric Osterberg — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 16:19:33 +0000

Thank you for revealing the horrible acts commited by a society against gay people. I am originally from Boise, Idaho and remember such incidents inflicted on gay people by the city government. There is a DVD named “The Fall of 55″ which describes these incidents. I am a gay man who spent four years in the Navy, the latter three in Boston. During that time I met my lifetime partner while in the Navy and we have been together fourty-eight years and were married six years ago in our home state of Massachusetts.

Society is learning that what is natural for some is unnatural for others i.e. it is unnatural for me as a homosexual man to be with a heterosexual man or woman. There is much more to being a homosexual than just sex. There are deep emotions of love and devotion which is part of our physiology in addition to sex. We have many friends who are and have been with same sex partners for many years. Educating society including the military is a good way to dispell the fears and myths of homosexuality.

By: Harvard’s Homosexual Purge – GNUconsulting

Harvard’s Homosexual Purge – GNUconsulting — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 22:15:40 +0000

[...] A quick shock to the system to anyone that thinks homosexuality was “discovered” in the …. That is, the same type of person that thinks premarital sex never happened until 1969. [...]

By: Perry Glasser

Perry Glasser — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 21:26:22 +0000

Great work–scrupulously reserached and gracefully written

By: David Wise

David Wise — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 18:49:52 +0000

Good story and video. Those poor poofs. Hee, hee.

By: Tom Matlack

Tom Matlack — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 17:26:16 +0000

An amazing piece Benoit!
Thank you for your friendship.

By: Chicks Dig Us (And Dudes, Too) — The Good Men Project Magazine

Chicks Dig Us (And Dudes, Too) — The Good Men Project Magazine — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 15:41:04 +0000

[...] our launch day, the web site longform.org—which highlights strong longform writing—recommended Benoit’s feature about Harvard in 1920, and Choire Sicha over at The Awl linked to our magazine and mentioned that it looks “somewhat [...]

By: suzanne rosenwasser

suzanne rosenwasser — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 12:13:20 +0000

I survived college in Boston in the 60s when rebellions of all sorts took place at Sunday dinners spent with families of room mates. I remember one in particular at which the male sibling from Harvard came out during a rage against his father’s insistence that he man-up and enlist in the fight in VietNam. In the silence that followed, it was clear this son and father wouldn’t speak much in the future. I often wonder about them and hope that today they’ve found the words along with the time to share them. Of the expelled Harvard men, I think the ‘after-stories’ are so interesting and can only imagine they never enjoyed much peace with their real selves.

By: TJ

TJ — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 09:50:56 +0000

To the extent that this film is a transcript of actual proceedings, it reveals nasty tactics and arbitrariness that I very much doubt are entirely gone to this day. Boston was famous for its ‘blue laws’, but I very much doubt that Harvard was alone in this kind of persecution.

As to the idea that “a gay subculture” was “prevented from existing” by repression and isolation: this was not a ‘gay subculture’, it was a bunch of college boys experimenting and discovering themselves … just as generations had in private secondary schools for generations.

According to a Wikipedia article on George Chauncey, “it was not until the 1930s and afterward that a strict regime of policing gay male sexuality emerged. It was in this period, he contends, that homosexual behavior began to move underground.” Note that that coincides with the beginning repression going on in Nazi Germany. That’s probably not an accident, since the ideas that made that era possible were also circulating in the upper echelons in the US.

By: GMB

GMB — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 06:40:21 +0000

A play based on this account, VERITAS, has had several workshop productions in NYC and will be part of the August, 2010 New York International Fringe Festival.

http://www.veritastheplay.com/

By: Laura Novak

Laura Novak — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 17:06:02 +0000

Having grown up around Boston, with my father’s firm on Brattle Street, I understand and remember well the Puritan ethic that prevailed there, at least during my childhood. But what would “Mrs. Jack” (Isabella Stewart Gardner) have thought? Surely, she opened her home to “those people” during her time. Of course the irony of it all is that those who hunt it down are usually secretly seeking it out. Thankfully, we have come a long way. This is excellent research and story telling.

By: Sodomy on the Charles: Those Were the Days Edition :: Keyser Söze's Lair

Sodomy on the Charles: Those Were the Days Edition :: Keyser Söze's Lair — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 00:50:13 +0000

[...] boasting spacious rooms, brick corridors, and iron staircases—was home to some of the brightest, most promising young men in America. As Harvard students, they were expected to continue the tradition of the country’s [...]

By: Tweets that mention The Secret Court — The Good Men Project Magazine -- Topsy.com

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 20:33:53 +0000

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by longform.org, The Good Men Project. The Good Men Project said: 'The savage 1920 purge of suspected homosexuals from Harvard University.' ~Benoit Denizet-Lewis http://bit.ly/ajs420 [...]

By: Bennett

Bennett — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 17:26:55 +0000

I have been reading this book: it’s fascinating both for the subject at hand and for the glimpse into homosexuality in the era, and reactions to it. The thing that impresses me is not the vehemence of the reaction against gay men,; that I expected. It is rather the acknowledged and continuous presence of a gay subculture in a time we were led to believe repression and isolation had prevented from existing!