(GayWebSource.com – Gay News & Press Network) – Posted by Jake Simpson – TheGayUK.com
WNET the premier public media provider of the New York metropolitan area and parent of public television stations THIRTEEN and WLIW21 has just released a video of The Rejected, which had been ‘lost’ for years.
This programme was not only the first ever televised documentary on homosexuality ever aired in America in September 1961, but it very famously included homosexuals from the Mattachine Society (one of the very first ever gay rights groups) in the discussions too for the very first time.
Prior to this conversation often took place between ostensibly straight experts on the subject rather than with the subjects themselves, who are often blamed for their “condition.” The Rejected took a progressive — for the time — view, often placing the onus on society and its treatment of homosexuals.
Though groundbreaking for its day, The Rejected is still a product of its time, it was filmed eight years before Stonewall, 12 before the American Psychiatric Association declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder. The Rejected also featured interviews with Dr. Karl Bowman of the APA, Bishop James Pike, and Rabbi Alvin Fine to offer a religious perspective, along with anthropologist Margaret Mead, who had her fair share of secret lesbian affairs.
Over 50 years later, it’s Mattachine Society’s President Harold Call’s remarks that resonate most deeply:
“The homosexual is no different than anyone else except perhaps in his choice of a love object. He desires the same kind of right to live his life freely and without interference, to pursue his happiness as a responsible citizen and to receive the benefits of constitutional rights, due process and protection of the law that all of us enjoy.”
Media Provided by the GayWebSource.com – Gay News & Press Network.
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