Chick Tract #027 - The Gay Blade (1972)

A tract attempting to draw parallels between the Gay Liberation movement of the late 1960's through the mid 1980's to the events of Sodom and Gomorrah. It opens with a wedding between two unnamed male characters and talks about how the "Gay Revolution" is underway. It then cuts to the beginning of the events of Sodom and Gomorrah in which God plans to destroy the two towns and sends two angels to remove Lot from the city. This follows a retelling in which the townspeople of Sodom wish to 'know' the angels and are subsequently blinded. Lot and his family are then removed from Sodom before it is destroyed by God. Following this retelling, the tract ends with how you can be 'saved' from the sin of homosexuality by turning to God.

Chick Publications released ten tracts in 1972 (a record for total numer of tracts published in a given year which stood unbroken until 1991), and among these was the first to deal directly with homosexuality as the primary subject: The Gay Blade.

The Gay Blade is an artifact of conservative reaction against the LGBTQ+ community in 20th Century America. This tract fits neatly as a companion piece to The Last Generation, published the same year, and refers to specific contemporary examples of an increasingly obvious presence of homosexuals in American society implied to be a sign of apocalyptic social degeneration.

The history of LGBTQ+ rights in the United States is fraught with illustrations of conservative retaliation against a changing way-of-things. At the time of the publication of The Gay Blade, homosexuality was still widely illegal in the United States, with sexual intercourse between same-sex couples punishable by law in at least 46 states. Illinois had been the first state to decriminalize homosexuality in 1962, and it would be nearly a decade before other states would follow suit. Decriminalization occurred in Connecticut in 1971, with Colorado and Oregon following in 1972 - the year of The Gay Blade's publication.

Comparatively, the legal concessions made by these American states were not leading the charge; homosexual activity, arguably more globally illegal between men than women, had already been decriminalized by the entire neighboring nation of Canada three years prior, and was not illegal in the British countries of England or Wales, nor East or West Germany, Japan, Thailand, nor Mexico just to name a few. While the leniency of the differing laws surrounding homosexuality around the world were certainly not uniform, the states in Jack Chick’s home country that had reformed or eliminated their sodomy and/or indecency laws could only be considered pioneers within the limitations of the national borders of the United States.

At the time of printing, the United States was deeply entrenched in a Cold War with easily-conflated real and imagined enemies, with the widespread political persecution and suspicion of the McCarthy era being only a recent memory. To contextualize this publication, it is important to note that recent years had been socially tumultuous; the increasingly unpopular Vietnam War was being met with widespread protests, the Civil Rights Act had ended state-enforced racial segregation less than a decade prior, and a rising counterculture was tying together growing resistance to the moralism socially and legally enforced by prior generations.

The resulting clash of generations led to notable instances of civil unrest that began to shift the margins of social acceptability. Among these was a catastrophic police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a known gay-friendly establishment, in Greenwich Village, New York. The resulting “Stonewall Riots,” which lasted several days in 1969, saw homosexual men and women take a stand against the systemic injustice that had long been familiar and commonplace. The riots captured national attention, substantially broadened homosexuality as a topic of public conversation, and subsequently gave birth to the modern Gay Pride movement.

The choice of specific events and references chosen for the original tract are extremely indicative, and their common denominator is the relation between unconventional sexuality and civil unrest. As references go, the tract offers the tallest podium to an article from the 1971 New Years Eve edition Life Magazine^[A]. This edition included a detailed recapture of Gay Rights activism in its year, complete with pictures showing congregations of queer people and their clashes with law enforcement. The Lambda symbol, in use at the time as the symbol of the New York chapter of the Gay Activists Alliance, is clearly visible on t-shirts and becomes the focus of the tract’s 4th page. Also within the Life article, homosexuals and police officers are declared “dedicated antagonists,” crossdressers are called propagandists in the cause of liberation from traditional sex roles, and a cast of movement leaders are showcased for the audience’s familiarity. Where the existence of the tract as a reactionary publication and the references as artifacts of their own intersect most interestingly is in these profiles: the “Politician” of the movement is declared to be none other than Frank Kameny.

Kameny, at the time of the Life article’s publication, had been fired from his government job for his sexual orientation and this is directly mentioned by the source. His response to this was to become a political candidate and activist. Kameny had recently become well-known in the world of American psychiatry after disrupting a meeting of the American Psychiatric Association. "Psychiatry is the enemy incarnate,” Kameny said into a seized microphone. “Psychiatry has waged a relentless war of extermination against us. You may take this as a declaration of war against you." Only 3 years later, this war had been more or less won: homosexuality was removed as an entry in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in the 7th printing of the DSM-II.

While clashes between law enforcement and marginalized queer individuals and groups had occurred before Stonewall, the collective outrage and camaraderie demonstrated by these communities in direct defiance of conservative conventional wisdom set this event apart from prior incidents. It was this camaraderie, specifically, that received the majority of reactionary ire. Collectives such as the Gay Activists Alliance maintained that they were willing to pursue their basic human rights despite the odds, and reactionary publications made it equally clear that they found the situation to be horrifying.

The rhetoric and narrative of The Gay Blade is a microcosm of this deeply-entrenched reaction, pulling together the usual details: that homosexuality is an unnatural “choice,” that the purpose of gay and lesbian organization is to infiltrate all levels of society to carry out a unique agenda, that failure to “overcome” homosexuality is a rejection of Christ, all coagulated together against a misinterpretation of a Biblical story in which two cities, Sodom and Gomorrah, are destroyed by the wrath of God himself as punishment for sexual perversity.

Ezekiel 16:49-50 lists the reasons for the destruction of Sodom, and homosexuality is absent from the charges. “This was the guilt of your sister Sodom,” says Ezekiel: “she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty, and did abominable things before me; therefore I removed them when I saw it.” Yet the charge of “sodomy” has its etymological root in the name of this city in which a rowdy crowd barbarically demands the rape of two visiting men. From the point of view of faith-and-flag conservatives both then and now, it was implied that it was the homosexuality that was the egregious sin, rather than the rape.

There is an unusual reference made, or merely implied, in this section of the tract. Three archaeologists, said to be exploring an ancient Canaanite site in the early 20th Century, are shown expressing explicit disgust at their findings. One of them agonizes that “we can’t publish this, it’s filthy!” The tract explains very little of what it means to say, and instead vaguely directs the reader to Deuteronomy 7:2 and comments that “It was the only way to keep their filth and brutality from spreading.”

This appears to be a reference to Irish archaeologist Robert Alexander Stewart Macalister who between the years of 1902-1909 excavated a long series of physical artifacts from Tel Gezer for the Palestine Exploration Fund, and published his detailed findings. Macalister, at least in his publications,^{[C] [D] [E] [F]} agonizes in no such way as fabricated by the tract. The fabricated reaction appears to be a basic segue into the referenced Bible verse in which God demands no leniency or humanity be shown to seven rival tribes, essentially demanding they be wiped from the face of Earth by brute force.

The reasoning for this link is purely inductive: God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah for their homosexuality, and God demanded the destruction of these seven rival tribes, therefore the seven rival tribes were guilty of homosexuality. Yet, Deuteronomy 7 does not cooperate with this interpretation. Rather, while the total destruction of the rival peoples is indeed commanded, the conquest of territory is the stated goal. Deuteronomy 7 and the Macalister archaeological excavations only share the commonality of involving a vague notion of Canaanites; the inference of sexual degeneracy appears to be forced, hence the supposedly horrifying findings at Tel Gezer lacking any description in the tract. With the purpose of The Gay Blade being anti-homosexual propaganda, it would appear that no sufficient rationalization for intolerance toward homosexuality could be made without the obscurantism employed.

Following this line of thinking into apocalypticism, had the United States tolerated the existence of homosexuals, it may very well have called upon itself the very obliteration experienced by Sodom and Gomorrah. This is the fear being directly expressed by the tract, even if that expression requires some far-fetched connections: God destroyed two cities, one in which a crowd had purportedly demanded the rape of two men. God called for the destruction of other places too, requiring in these other cases that pious believers act as agents of death. Homosexuals in America were rioting. Could any conclusion be more clear?

Despite such conclusions by Jack Chick and others like him, the passage of time has proved these efforts to be insufficient to prevent social change. Decades have passed since the tract’s publication, and between then and now many major developments have demonstrated the victory of the Stonewall generation. In 2015, the Supreme Court case Obergefell v. Hodges struck down state bans on same-sex marriages, and while this did not mark the total end of the struggle for marriage equality, this sign of the times made clear the winning team.

Looking back at The Gay Blade in a modern context, there are as many striking differences in tone as there are striking similarities to modern discourse. Jack Chick’s first committed contribution to this discourse is very clearly made from a fringe position, though the privilege of identifying The Gay Blade as a fringe publication only belongs to those with the privilege of reviewing the tract retrospectively. The sinister suspicion cast on same-sex couples is not dead; its violence has merely been suppressed, and only partially, by the modern sensibilities in limited parts of the world. Homosexuality remains punishable by death in some countries, and existing laws or the lack thereof may be at risk of inconsistent enforcement even in ostensibly democratic nations. While the paranoid and hateful position of The Gay Blade may not land successfully with a wide audience today, there is still an audience to which this tract speaks, and there are many who live in a world identical to the one the tract advocates for.

Every social advancement made by those marginalized by Bible-based social conservatism has a history which includes retaliatory propaganda written to throw fuel onto the fires of social anxiety. With this tract, we are able to remember in explicit detail what such fuel looked like in the early 1970s, and follow the genealogy of this fuel to its modern proponents and ancient ancestors. It is estimated that even now, LGBTQ+ people are four times more likely to experience violent victimization than the typical rate - the work is not yet done, but the ability to call such tracts as The Gay Blade what they are: artifacts, is a demonstration of the intensely positive changes between then and now.

The modifications made to this tract seem to have been enacted primarily due to the initial recognition and subsequent spread of the human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) and their resulting condition, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) in the early 1980's. This condition initially struck the homosexual male population in disproportionate amounts, resulting in its original moniker, gay related immunodeficiency (GRID) Whereas prior to this, the common arguments put forward by religious critics against the so-called "gay lifestyle" were focused more extensively on the revulsion heterosexual individuals felt towards the specific acts homosexual individuals sometimes used to make love to one another (both real and imagined) and on the potential spread of less serious sexually transmitted infections such as gonorrhea and syphilis, the AIDS epidemic allowed them a powerful new tool in which to exercise their bigotry against a minority population they saw as inherently degenerate (see the works of Dick Hafer for examples). Changes made to the text and artwork from the 1972 to the 2000 Edition of this particular tract capitalize both on this, as well as the changes in fashion sense since the '70. Notably, the more recent Edition abandoned the hand-lettered text of the original publication as well as the following...

• On Page 2, the footnote mentioning Reference A (from which the art for few of the following pages were derived) is removed.


• On Page 3, there are slight font and color changes to the section discussing "gay militants".


• On Page 5, the second instance of the word gay now contains scare quotes.


• In Panel 6A, a specific reference to The David Susskind Show is removed in favor of more generically mentioning "TV sitcoms and talk shows" (Reference H). Likewise, Reference B is removed from the footer. In Panel 6B, homosexuals go from being "now invited to speak at clubs and religious meetings" to being "regularly invited to speak at clubs, churches and even school classrooms". Reference A is once again removed from below the panel.


• In Panel 7A, the general text describing the homosexual "power structure", their proclivity for hiding their identities and the implication that they infiltrate "women's lib organizations" and government positions of power has been substituted for an image of two men holding hands and descending a staircase beneath a very prominent American flag which occupies much of the foreground; an image repurposed from Panel 3B of the tract Sin Busters (110.1991.03B). The remaining text has been modified to indicate that "[t]hey no longer try to hide their identity". Reference A has also been removed from the bottom of the page. In Panel 7B, an estimate of the homosexual population of "2 to 20 million" has been replaced with the statement that gays "claim that they include 10% of the population, but reliable studies indicate under 2 percent." No such studies are mentioned and yet another instance of Reference A is lost. An arrow pointing to the next page has also been removed from the caption.


• On Page 8, the Bible reference to Deuteronomy 7:2 is moved from within the caption to a footnote in the illustration.


• On Page 10, the Bible reference to Genesis 19:1 is moved from a footnote to inside the caption.


• In Panel 12A, the footnote Bible reference to Genesis 19:3 is increased in size and moved from the bottom of the page to inside the illustration. In Panel 12B, Genesis 19:4 is moved inside the caption and the spelling of the word "practised" is adjusted to the American style spelling "practiced". This is unusual as Chick's spelling of "Saviour" in the British English style was adopted for future tracts after his deep investment in the tenets of the King James Only movement around the late 1970's. The overall brightness of the scene in the illustration is also increased, allowing the viewer to now see three trees growing behind Lot's house.


• In Panel 13A, the footnote to Genesis 19:5 is once again made more prominent and moved to inside the illustration and the angry man's speech bubble is moved from the bottom of the frame towards the top. In Panel 13B, the repeated Bible reference to the same verse is removed entirely. The sentence which mentions knowing the angels "(sexually)" finally receives a period at the end.
  


• In Panels 14A and B, the Bible references to Genesis 19:6-8 and Genesis 19:9 are again relocated respectively.


• In Panels 15A and B, the Bible references to Genesis 19:10 and Genesis 19:11 are once again relocated. In Panel 15B specifically, the awkward and redundant phrasing "The angels blinded the men with blindness" is reworded to the more sensible "The angels struck the men with blindness".


• The footnote to Genesis 19:11 is once again relocated on Page 16.
  


• On Page 17, the text detailing Dr. Kyle's findings regarding Sodom from Reference G are combined into a single paragraph and the book's title is moved inside the frame.


• Panel 18A has multiple changes to both the art and text. The top caption is changed from "Some experts say homosexuality is a disease, others blame family problems or hormone levels" to "New laws are encouraging the Sodomites (homosexuals) to take the offensive". The bottom caption is changed from "It's like a demonic power that controls them -- only Christ can overcome it; if they'll receive him as personal savior" to "Only Christ can overcome this demonic power that controls them". Likewise, the homosexual's dialog is changed from "You must understand that I'm sick - and you should have compassion on me!" to "You're offended by gays? Are you some kind of bigot?" and his target's dialog changes from "I think I'd better go!" to "Let go!". Simultaneously, the homosexual's hair is changed to a buzz cut and his mustache is changed from a horseshoe style to more of a Tom Selleck type of handlebar mustache instead. In Panel 18B, the same two Bible verses are referenced (Leviticus 18:22 and 1 Corinthians 6:9&10) but the Bible version has been updated to quote the King James Version instead of the Amplified Version instead.


• In Panel 19A, both the reference and quote of Matthew 10:26 are omitted. In Panel 19B, Romans 1:26 is still quoted but from the King James Bible instead of the Scofield Reference Bible, the text of which is almost exactly the same.


• Panel 20A quotes Romans 1:27, but the version and quote are changed from the Amplified Version to the King James Version again, and there is also additional text added which states: "Average life expectancy for the male homosexual before AIDS was only 42 years because of venereal disease and violence. AIDS only reduced it to 39 years". In Panel 20B, the reference and quote of Romans 1:32 is once again switched from the Amplified Bible to the KJV.


• In Panel 21B, the Bible references for John 1:1-3 and Hebrews 1:2 are moved from below the frame to within the top caption. The illustration of the Suffering Christ is also slightly more vertically cropped in the newer Edition.


• In Panel 22A, the top caption is changed from "Jesus loves you and will clean up your life for you..." to "Jesus loves you and will transform your life completely...". In Panel 22B, the top caption is changed from "On the **Day of Judgment, all of the lost will stand before God -- all of those who died in their sins" to "But on the Day of Judgment, all who rejected Him will stand before God -- those who died in their sins". The Bible references to Matthew 25:41 and Revelation 20 are moved from below the frame to inside of the illustration.

• Boolean Union - https://boolean-union.com/dissections/boolunion/BU.CHICK.GAYB.DISCT.html


• Enter the Jabberwock - http://web.archive.org/web/20070623044044/http://www.enterthejabberwock.com/?p=137


• User Slick146 (Space Battles Forum) (via Boolean Union) - https://boolean-union.com/dissections/spacebattles/SLK146.CHICK.GAYB.DISCT.html


• The Bible Reloaded (YouTube Video) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oorbcq_soFo

• Trope Index

• #[A]⇑ Life Magazine (31 December 1971). Time Inc. via Google Books.
  (https://books.google.com/books?id=8z8EAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false)


• #[B]⇑ The Saturday Review (12 February 1972). Saturday Review, Inc. via the Unz Review.
  (https://www.unz.com/print/SaturdayRev-1972feb12/)


• #[C]⇑ Bible Side-Lights From the Mound of Gezer : A Record of Excavation and Discovery in Palestine by Robert Alexander Stewart Macalister (19o6). Hodder and Stoughton Publishers, London via the Internet Archive.
  (https://archive.org/details/biblesidelights00maca/page/n7/mode/2up)


• #[D]⇑ Excavation of Gezer - Volume 1 by Robert Alexander Stewart Macalister (1912). John Murray Albemarle Street, London via the Internet Archive.
  (https://archive.org/details/in.gov.ignca.33822)


• #[E]⇑ Excavation of Gezer - Volume 2 by Robert Alexander Stewart Macalister (1912). John Murray Albemarle Street, London via the Internet Archive.
  (https://archive.org/details/in.gov.ignca.33823)


• #[F]⇑ Excavation of Gezer - Volume 3 by Robert Alexander Stewart Macalister (1912). John Murray Albemarle Street, London via the Internet Archive.
  (https://archive.org/details/in.gov.ignca.33824)


• #[G]⇑ Explorations at Sodom by Melvin Grove Kyle (19oo). The Religious Tract Society, London via the Internet Archive.
  (https://archive.org/details/explorationsatso00kyle/page/n7/mode/2up)


• #[H]⇑ Women Who Love Women. Directed by Arthur Forrest.The David Susskind Show (1971, October 10). Metromedia Television and Pamandia Productions, Inc. via the GLBT Historical Society Film and Video Collection, The GLBT Historical Society Archives.
  (https://glbt.i8.dgicloud.com/davidsusskindshowwomenwholovewomentape1)
  (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3)


• #[I]⇑ Sin, Sex, and Democracy: Antigay Rhetoric and the Christian Right by Cynthia Burack (2008). The State University of New York (SUNY) Press, Albany.
  (https://sunypress.edu/Books/S/Sin-Sex-and-Democracy)