They did have sting operations to catch homosexuals in the US back then, most people (if not everybody, considering the decade you're looking at) also believed that homosexuals were child predators who would indoctrinate children and adolescents into becoming homosexuals -- many of them thought that was how homosexuals were "created". They believed homosexuality was a choice, and that anyone could end up becoming one if introduced to the addictive "practice" of homosexuality. When looking back at how gays were seen by people of the last century it is very important to consider that their way of seing homosexuality was very different from ours, failing to do so would inevitably result in historical anacronism. They did not believe homosexuality was a sexuality you were born with, they thought it was a practice that people (mainly children and teens, who they considered to be more impressionable) ended up addicted to. There were many hate crimes against homosexuals worldwide, most people believed its practices should be a crime, a lot believed in the death penalty for homosexuals. In contrast, I think the societal changes in the perception of homosexuality also affected how people see minor-attraction now... HOWEVER I do remember reading a paper about public perception of MAPs where most people believed that being a map was a choice. Anyways, I think we already have enough information to say that history is just repeating itself right now. The more you look at it, the more similar both cases become. |