Professor Stein Recounts 1967 Supreme Court Decision Upholding Deportation of 'Homosexuals' as 'Psychopaths'

HISTORY NEWS NETWORK -- Marc Stein is the Jamie and Phyllis Pasker Professor of History at San Francisco State University and the author of several books, including “Sexual Injustice: Supreme Court Decisions from Griswold to Roe” (University of North Carolina Press, 2010). For the fiftieth anniversary of Boutilier v. INS, he is launching an online exhibit on Outhistory.org and moderating a roundtable on Notches. “As we remember Boutilier v. the INS on its 50th anniversary, there are good reasons to be angry and upset about the historical mistreatment of ‘homosexuals’ and other gender and sexual ‘deviates’ in the U.S. immigration system,” Stein writes. ”In this context, we have options about how we choose to remember. We can disavow the historical connections between homosexuality and disability, insisting that the primary injustice in Boutilier lies in the mischaracterization of ‘homosexuals’ as psychopaths. We also can consider what it might mean to recognize and explore these connections, which might be a better starting place for thinking about our ongoing struggles against immigration restriction.”