^1. See telegram, 13 July 1978, from the U.S. Embassy in Manila to Representative John McFall, and Department of State Information Sheet, “Classes of Aliens Ineligible to Receive Visas,” enclosure to letter, 29 June 1979, from Lloyd L. DeWitt, Acting Director, Office of Public and Diplomatic Liaison, Visa Services Directorate, U.S. State Department, to Stanley Porte Rebultan (Zenaida's brother), both in file, “Gay Rights,” box 7, Bob Malson files, Civil Rights Cluster, Domestic Policy Staff, Jimmy Carter Presidential Library (cited hereafter as CR/DPS JCL). Under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, preference went to adult, unmarried relatives first, of United States citizens and second, of U.S. residents; Rebultan qualified, then, under the latter category.

^2. Because my focus here is policy, I gloss over the significant debate among historians of sexuality about the historical specificity of “lesbian,” “gay,” and “homosexual” as identity categories; probably those who were attracted to others of the same gender in 1917 did not think of themselves as lesbian or gay as we would now use those terms. For an excellent discussion of this issue, see the introduction to Chauncey's, GeorgeGay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890–1940 (New York, 1994), 12–29.Google Scholar

^3. Accounts of immigration legislation and policy are surprisingly difficult to find. See Hutchinson, E. P., Legislative History of American Immigration Policy, 1798–1965 (Philadelphia, 1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. More cursory, but useful, summaries appear in the legislative history included in House Report 1365 on the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952, published in U.S. Code Congressional and Administrative News, 82nd Cong., 2d sess., 1952, 1653–74; and Vialet, Joyce and Eig, Larry, “Grounds for Exclusion of Aliens Under the Immigration and Nationality Act: Historical Background and Analysis,”Report to the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, 100th Cong., 2d sess.,September 1988.Google Scholar

^4. Bogatin, Marc, “The Immigration and Nationality Act and the Exclusion of Homosexuals: Boutilier v. INS Revisited,” Cardozo Law Review 2 (1981): 362 n. 19.Google Scholar

^5. On immigrants as moral threats to the nation, see Gordon, Linda, Woman's Body, Woman's Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America (New York, 1976), chap. 7Google Scholar, “Race Suicide”; D'Emilio, John and Freedman, Estelle B., Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America (New York, 1988), 208–15Google Scholar. On hereditarian and eugenic thought in the period generally, see Gordon, Woman's Body, 116–35; and Degler, Carl, In Search of Human Nature (New York, 1991)Google Scholar; see also Bogatin, “Exclusion of Homosexuals,” 362 n. 19, justifying exclusion of aliens with “tainted blood.” Note that the earliest federal immigration legislation (the Alien & Sedition Acts of 1798 excepted), beginning in 1882, dealt with the importation of Chinese and Japanese coolies and prostitutes; immigration and prostitution remained intimately entwined in both the public mind and in federal legislation, whether in fears of the White Slave Trade or the assumption that most Johns were foreign-born men, throughout the first decades of the twentieth century. See Hutchinson, Legislative History, 80–158.

On the role of doctors in defining and medicalizing deviance, see Brandt, Alan M., No Magic Bullet: A Social History of Venereal Disease in the United States Since 1880 (New York, 1987), esp. chap. 1Google Scholar; and Foucault, Michel, History of Sexuality, Volume I: An Introduction, trans. Hurley, Robert (1976; New York, 1990).Google Scholar

^6. “Evolution of U.S. Immigration Policy,” Congressional Digest 56 (October 1977): 256; John D'Emilio argues that purges of suspected “homosexuals” from the federal government during the early 1950s reflected anxiety over a perceived loss of masculinity among American men and instability in families, with “homosexuals” threatening private morality in much the same way that communists supposedly threatened the polity. See “The Homosexual Menace: The Politics of Sexuality in Cold War America,” in Passion and Power: Sexuality in History ed. Peiss, Kathy and Simmons, Christina (Philadelphia, 1989), 226–40Google Scholar; see also Rogin, Michael, “Kiss Me Deadly: Communism, Motherhood, and Cold War Movies,” Representations 6 (1984): 1–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

^7. Lyndon B. Johnson, message to Congress, 15 January 1965, Congressional Record, vol. 111, part 1, p. 687.

^8. See transcripts for hearings on H.R. 2580, House Committee on the Judiciary, Immigration, and Naturalization Subcommittee, 89th Cong., 1st sess., 4 March 1965, 150, 152.

^9. Fieuti v. Rosenberg, 302 F 2d 652.

^10. 387 U.S. 118 (1967). The following description of the case comes from the text of this decision.

^11. D'Emilio, John, Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in the United States, 1940–1970 (Chicago, 1983)Google Scholar. The commonsense presumption that before 1969 lesbians and gay men constituted a largely invisible subculture, or that legal and religious proscription served effectively to prevent significant expression of such desire, much less the development of a subculture, has become untenable in light of recent scholarship. The latest addition to a rapidly growing body of work on the subject is Chauncey, Gay New York.

^12. The best account of the Stonewall riots is Duberman's, MartinStonewall (New York, 1993)Google Scholar; for briefer accounts of the riots in the larger context of the development of the lesbian/gay rights movement, see Adam, Barry D., The Rise of a Gay and Lesbian Movement (Boston, 1987), 75–76Google Scholar; and D'Emilio, Sexual Politics, 231–39.

^13. By characterizing the Nixon administration as conservative on civil rights issues, I have no desire to dispute Hugh Davis Graham's argument that Nixon helped to consolidate the civil rights revolution. He notes in The Civil Rights Era: Origins and Development of National Policy, 1960–1972 (New York, 1990)Google Scholar that Nixon legitimated civil rights the way that Eisenhower legitimated the New Deal—by accommodating it on the margins (4). The question of motive is crucial here: Graham refers to “the relative moral indifference that characterized the political calculus of Nixon's domestic policy decisions” (475). Clearly, political calculus from 1969 to 1974 would have dictated at best agnosticism on the subject of lesbian/gay rights because that group had yet to demonstrate any significant electoral power at the federal level (they seem to have demonstrated such power in 1992, although to what effect remains a highly contentious question). Also, one of Graham's main points is precisely that administrators in the executive branch and the permanent government can make quiet changes that the President would never claim publicly or might even oppose; see his discussion of the expanding authority of the EEOC during the Nixon administration (412–35). As I will describe below, Carter's White House aides worked on behalf of lesbian/gay rights to an extent that Carter himself could probably never have acknowledged very loudly; certainly there is no evidence to suggest that anyone in either the Nixon or Ford administrations was particularly interested in lesbian/gay rights issues. See, for example, Nixon's own discussion of civil rights in RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New York, 1990), 435–45Google Scholar; see also Reichley, A. James, Conservatives in an Age of Change: The Nixon and Ford Administrations (Washington, D.C., 1981).Google Scholar

^14. For two interesting perspectives on this issue, see D'Emilio, Sexual Politics, 116–17, 124–25, on the willingness of early homophile organizations to host speakers who told them how sick and immoral they were; and Duberman, Martin, Cures: A Gay Man's Odyssey (New York, 1991)Google Scholar, on Duberman's personal experience with psychoanalysis and the difficulty he had overcoming the psychoanalytic perspective on his sexuality in favor of a political one.

^15. On the APA's decision and the events leading up to it, see Bayer, Ronald, Homosexuality and American Psychiatry: The Politics of Diagnosis (New York, 1981)Google Scholar. On lobbying the INS, see “Deviant Customs,” The New Republic, 21 and 28 July 1979, 9.

Note that the NGTF has since changed its name to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, but in the text I will retain the name as it was at the time. The NGLTF is a membership organization dedicated primarily to lobbying, while the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund is an organization of professionals, mostly lawyers, who focus on legal issues in the courts. On the NGLTF, see the entry in Encyclopedia of Homosexuality, ed. Dynes, Wayne R., 2 vols. (New York, 1990), 2: 845.Google Scholar

^16. There is extensive information, including a transcript of “The Tomorrow Show” from 19 March 1976 and a photocopy of an NGTF Action Report comparing Ford's and Carter's statements on the issue, in the file “Gay Rights,” Box 7, Malson files, CR/DPS JCL. For Carter's description of himself, see Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President (New York, 1982), 73–74.Google Scholar

^17. See Hippler, Mike, Matlovich: The Good Soldier (Boston, 1989).Google Scholar

^18. On the meeting itself, see memo, Marilyn Haft to Margaret Costanza, 31 June 1977, “1/20/77–1/20/81,” Box FG-114, White House Central File-Subject File, Jimmy Carter Library (cited hereafter as WHCF-SF JCL); roster for meeting and Bob Malson's notes, 12 July 1977, “Gay Views,” Box 8, Malson files, CR/DPS JCL; on other meetings, see, for example, “National Gay Rights Task Force—White House Meeting—3/26/77, Notes by Bob Malson,” and memo, Marilyn Haft to Margaret Costanza, 25 March 1977, both in “Gay Views.” For Haft's background, see letters, Haft to Women and Law Conference, 14 February 1977; and to R. Adam Debaugh, Gay Rights National Lobby, 28 June 1977, both in file, “Haft,” Box FG 6–1-1, WHCF JCL.

^19. Letter, 27 March 1978, Costanza to R. W. Sohns, “1/1/78–6/30/78,” Box HU-8, WHCF-SF JCL; “NGTF Position Memorandum on Immigration Policy Regarding Homosexuals,” 11 July 1979, “Gay Rights,” Box 7, Malson files, CR/DPS JCL.

^20. National Committee for Sexual Civil Liberties, “In re Petition to the Immigration and Naturalization Service for Review of its Policies on Homosexuality: Memorandum of Points and Authorities in Support of Petition,” 12 July 1977, “Gay Views,” Box 8, Malson files, CR/DPS JCL.

^21. See letter, undated (July or August 1979), MichaelJ. Egan, Associate Attorney General, to C. F. Brydon and Lucia Valeska, NGTF, “Gay Rights,” Box 7, Malson files, CR/DPS.

^22. “Report of the Public Health Service on the Medical Aspects of H.R. 2379, a Bill to Revise the Laws Relating to Immigration, Naturalization, and Nationality, and for other Purposes,” in House Report 1365 to the McCarran-Walter Act, published in U.S. Code Congressional and Administrative News, 82nd Cong., 2dsess., 1701.

^23. New York Times, 12 December 1979, 16; “Deviant Customs,” 8. It is worth noting here that, according to the 1988 committee report on grounds for exclusion of aliens (see note 3 above), in 1987 alone the INS refused visas to seventy-six people under paragraph (4) of section 212(a) (“psychopathic personality, sexual deviation, or mental defect”), one of the least likely grounds for exclusion. One wonders about such a large disparity between the period 1971 to 1978 and the year 1987.

^24. Memo, undated, National Logistics Office for the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, “Gay Rights,” Box 7, Malson files, CR/DPS JCL.

^25. Attached to cover sheet on letterhead of the National Logistics Office for the March, see letters from Rebultan, 12 May 1979, to Cyrus Vance; 4 June 1979, to Lloyd L. DeWitt, Acting Director, Office of Public and Diplomatic Liaison, Visa Services Directorate, State Department; 20 June 1979, to Carlos P. Romulo, Philippine Ministry of Foreign Affairs; 8 July 1979, to Richard W. Murphy, U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of the Philippines. Also, letter, 12 June 1979, from Rebultan to Dr. Melvyn Sabshin, Director, American Psychiatric Association. All in “Gay Rights,” Box 7, Malson files, CR/DPS JCL.

^26. Letter, 12 May 1979, Rebultan to Alan Cranston, “Gay Rights,” Box 7, Malson files, CR/DPS JCL.

^27. See letter that refers to “your message to President Carter,” 4 June 1979, Hodding Carter to Rebultan, “Gay Rights,” Box 7, Malson files, CR/DPS.

^28. On this question, see Lundy, “Immigration Policy,” 186–88.

^29. “British Man Fights Immigration Policies,” Gay Community News 7 July 1979, attachment to letter, 13 July 1979, NGTF to Bob Malson, “Gay Rights,” Box 7, Malson files, CR/DPS JCL; see also “Are Homosexuals Illegal Aliens?” Newsweek, 27 August 1979, 25.

^30. Letter, 11 July 1979, C. F. Brydon and Lucia Valeska to Michael J. Egan, Associate Attorney General, and NGTF Position Memorandum on Immigration Policy Regarding Homosexuals, “Gay Rights,” Box 7, Malson files, CR/DPS JCL.

^31. Letter, undated, Egan to Brydon and Valeska, “Gay Rights,” Box 7, Malson files, CR/DPS JCL.

^32. Letter, 13 July 1979, Brydon and Valeska to Malson, “Gay Rights,” Box 7, Malson files, CR/DPS JCL.

^33. Memo, 27 July 1979, Philip B. Heymann to Michael J. Egan, “Gay Rights,” Box 7, Malson files, CR/DPS JCL.

^34. Memo, 31 July 1979, David Yeres to Egan, “Gay Rights,” Box 7, Malson files, CR/DPS JCL.

^35. Memo, 20 August 1979, David Yeres to Bill Heckman, “Gay Rights,” Box 7, Malson files, CR/DPS JCL.

^36. New York Times, 12 August 1979, 20; 27 December 1979, 16.

^37. Memo, 2 August 1979, Julius Richmond to Dr. William H. Foege, Director, Centers for Disease Control, and Dr. George I. Lythcott, Administrator, Health Services Administration, “Gay Rights,” Box 7, Malson files, CR/DPS JCL.

^38. Memo, 10 August 1979, Leonel Castillo to Executive Group, INS, “Gay Rights,” Box 7, Malson files, CR/DPS JCL.

^39. New York Times, 15 August 1979, 14.

^40. Letter, 15 August 1979, Mason to Rebultan, “Gay Rights,” Box 7, Malson files, CR/DPS JCL.

^41. Letter, 28 August 1979, Rebultan to Mason, “Gay Rights,” Box 7, Malson files, CR/DPS JCL.

^42. On the question of Zenaida's behavior, see letter from Stanley Rebultan to Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, 12 May 1979, in which he describes Zenaida as “a worthy citizen of her country with a clean Police record and a law-abiding citizen.” “Gay Rights” file, Box 7, Malson files, CR/DPS JCL.

^43. Letter, 31 August 1979, Brydon, Valeska, and Scott to Civiletti, “Gay Rights,” Box 7, Malson files, CR/DPS JCL.

^44. Memo, 6 June 1980, Stu Elizenstat and Malson to the President, “3/26/80–6/13/80,” Box IM-3, WHCF-SF JCL; New York Times, 27 December 1979, 16.

^45. New York Times, 1 January 1980, 40; 3 January 1980, section II, 13.

^46. Congressional Record-Senate, vol. 126, part 1, p. 486.

^47. On the administration's support for the bill, see memo, 6 June 1980, Eizenstat and Malson to the President, “3/26/80–6/13/80,” Box IM-3, WHCF-SF JCL; letter, 8 April 1980, Patricia M. Derian, Assistant Secretary for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, State Department, to John Shenefield, Associate Attorney General, Justice Department, “Gays [CF, O/A 728],” Box 211, Stuart Eizenstat files, JCL. On the Justice Department's concerns about the effect of the bill as written, see letters, 18 June 1980, Parker to Cranston and Kennedy, “Gays [CF, O/A 728],” Box 211, Eizenstat files, JCL.

^48. INS Reporter, Spring–Summer–Fall 1981, 13.

^49. Hill v. United States INS 714F.2d 1470 (1983), 1480.

^50. Matter of Longstaff 716 F.2d 1439 (1983), 1451. To point out only one oddity of these two cases, note that the court in Longstaff applied the principle of deference to administrative decisions to the INS's recent conclusion that it required no certificate, whereas the court in Hill applied exactly the same principle to the INS's long-standing practice of requiring certificates in all cases of medical exclusion. Compare Longstaff, p. 1450, to Hill, pp. 1477–78.

^51. Vialet and Eig, “Grounds for Exclusion,” 82.

^52. House Report 101–187, 27 July 1989, reprinted in U.S. Code Congressional and Administrative News, 101st Cong., 2d sess., vol. 8, p. 6732. The old paragraphs, 1–5, required exclusion of those who were mentally retarded or insane, or had suffered “one or more attacks of insanity,” as well as those “affilicted with psychopathic personality, or sexual deviation, or mental defect,” and alcoholics and those addicted to narcotics. The new provisions exclude aliens with a communicable disease that may have some public health impact and those whose disorders are associated with behavior that may pose a threat to the safety, welfare, or property of the alien or others. Also, note that all health exclusions must now rest on PHS regulations, thus precluding the quandary over distinctions between medical diagnoses and legal categories of exclusion. For a discussion of the new exclusions, see Levy, Daniel, “Exclusion Grounds Under the Immigration Act of 1990,” Immigration Briefings: Practical Analysis of Immigration and Nationality Issues 91–98 (August 1991): 4–12.Google Scholar

^53. During the Carter administration, enormous problems at the INS itself came to light even as the problem of illegal immigration and dissatisfaction with the 1965 system of legal immigration grew. See the journalistic account, Crewsdon, John, The Tarnished Door: The New Immigrants and the Transformation of America (New York, 1983)Google Scholar. Most attention in this period focused on the problem of revising the preference system for legal immigration and reducing the level of illegal immigration. For repeated efforts to change the law in the early 1980s, see Montwieler, Nancy Humel, The Immigration Reform Law of 1986: Analysis, Text, Legislative History (Washington, D.C., 1987), 3–22.Google Scholar