Boys of Boise |
Monday Jul 14 2008
By Jim Selman | BioA long time ago (in the late 60s I think). I read a book by John Gerassi called The Boys of Boise, Furor, Vice and Folly in an American City. Basically, it was a shocking journalistic reporting of how a city’s fears can create a kind of mass paranoia. Boise, Idaho isn’t quite the Wild West, but to this day it has a kind of ‘cowboy’ feeling about it. In the 1960s, same-sex anything (other than drinking and football) was something that just didn’t happen. You’d rather be a Red than Gay in those days—long before “Brokeback Mountain”. The book chronicles what happens when Time magazine reports that Boise is a mecca for homosexuals in America. The bottom line is that anyone and everyone was a suspect, the City hired a Gestapo-type investigator, and McCarthy-like prosecutions followed. If you want the details, get the book. I am reminded of this because to my shock and dismay, I read recently that child protection measures in the UK will be expanded with the implementation in 2009 of the Independent Safeguarding Authority, which will increase the number of adults to be vetted by the criminal justice system to 11 million.[Read More]
Written by eldering at Wisdom in Action
Tagged with: child_protection elders generations legislation relationship
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