How To Make More Gays: Step One: Find a Rapist. Step Two: Castrate Him

You know, sometimes you're just sitting there going about your own business and suddenly you run across something so mind-diddlingly, jaw-droppingly, did-i-really-just-read-that dumbfounding that you simply have to drop what you're doing, take a step back and channel your inner Keanu Reeves: "Whoooaa!"

Case in point: The other day I was at the main Nashville library downtown doing some research on a completely different topic, going through some microfilmed newspapers from the eighties, when I suddenly ran across this headline:


"Hunh?" I thought to myself, glancing over at the person next to me just to make sure I had not somehow slipped over into another universe where all the people had purple faces with orange polka-dots and amphibian tails, but no, that wasn't the case. So obviously, I had to read on. Who was this "Casey" guy? My first thought was that he must be some whack-job psychiatrist trying to peddle his new pet theory. Umm... nope.

What I had run across was actually the second part of a story that had begun on page nine of that day's paper ("that day", incidentally, being Feb 6, 1981, not 1437 as I had begun to suspect) and when i made it back to page nine, things suddenly became much clearer. Well, ok, not really. But they did make more sense. Sort of. In an "ok, I was wrong about the 'psychiatrist with a pet theory' part anyway " kind of sense. For there, on page nine, was the following actual lead headline:


and above it, the smiling (well, what passed for a smile with Joe at the time) face of former Metro Police Chief Joe Casey.

Now, for those of you who might not be from Nashville or might not be old enough to remember Joe Casey, he was Police Chief for Nashville and the Metropolitan Davidson County area from 1973 to 1989. He joined the force in 1951 at the age of 25, having graduated from Vanderbilt and playing pro baseball for the Boston Braves organization before returning to Nashville. As a police officer, he was well respected, (some would say feared) and he rose through the ranks until finally becoming chief. As chief, he became known as "Hang 'em high Joe" for advocating that murderers and rapists should be hanged on the courthouse steps in order to teach other criminals a lesson. Casey was what I suppose would be called a "cop's cop" and he wasn't afraid to speak his mind, even when he was talking out of his ass.

Apparently there was one thing he feared, though.

The story actually begins a few days earlier in Memphis. Then Police Director E. Winslow Chapman whose city, according to the Tennesean newspaper's Feb 3, 1981 edition was "the nation's per capita rape capital last year" had recently said at "an anti-crime mass meeting" that the way to end the problem of rape was to castrate those convicted of the crime. "If maybe we can castrate rapists one or two times... that crime would go down the drain... The possible consequence of castration would dissuade 90 to 95% of rapists".

However, Chapman also realized the prospects of his idea getting carried out were not very likely, going on to say "I don't think there's any real possibility that this nation is ready for mutilation and corporal punishment... I don't think we have the guts for it." Yeah, the lily-livered cowards!

One man whose liver definitely colored like any kind of flower, was good ol' Hang 'em high Joe. When asked about the comments, Casey advocated a simpler and more direct approach - just fry 'em. As quoted by the Tennessean, when asked about Chapman's comments, the chief responded "I advocate electrocuting rapists." He then went further, saying "My only concern - and I'm not a doctor, so I don't know - is that if we castrate them we might turn them jnto homosexuals. If we give rapists the death penalty then we don't have to worry about that possibility."

Yeah, Joe, I guess you've got a point there. If we go ahead and kill 'em, at least we don't have to worry that they might become fags.

Let's go straight to the paper for the next set of quotes, shall we?

Ok, so we not only have the concept that castrating a rapist might inadvertently turn them gay, but that obviously gay people aren't "normal". Oh, and then there's the statement that "homosexuals do not confine their activity to other consenting adults, but influence and eventually corrupt youth", which the paper does not even present as a quote, but simply seems to take as a given.

Now, understand, I really have no problem with Casey as far as advocating the death penalty for rapists. Rape is a horrible, ugly, violent, violating crime which should be dealt with by the harshest possible means. Let me say that again: rape is an ugly, violent crime. Being gay, on the other hand, is not. And the concept that somehow by castrating a rapist you might make him gay...

Oh, and just out of curiosity, even if castrating a man could, in some way, shape, or form possjbly make a man gay, what's he gonna do about it?! He's still been castrated! And he's in jail! Or perhaps Chief Casey was afraid of all the requests he'd have to field for fuchsia fabric to redecorate his cells.

(And let's all just agree to not even ask Joe where he thinks lesbians come from, shall we?)

So why bring all this up now? Is it simply to make fun of Mr. Casey and his moment of "wtf?"? Is it to highlight a sort of "the way people thought then" versus "the way we think now" example? Well, yes, initially, I have to admit it was both of those.

But now, it's also a warning.

You see, in trying to find some information for this article online (which I actually was unable to do, which is why you have to put up with the microfilm scans for which I again thank the Nashville Public Library system and their incredible collection of 'filmed newspapers) I ran across the fact that the South Korean parliament has just passed a bill to legalize chemical castration for child molesters. The article also notes that though they're the first Asian nation to legalize it, "the procedure is legal in several states in the U.S., including Louisiana, California, Oregon and Arizona. In Europe, Britain, Denmark and Sweden offers chemical castration on a voluntary basis."

I just hope those places are ready for all the gays they're about to create.