The Gay Mafia or Velvet Mafia is a term that is pejorative when used to describe the amalgamation of gay rights groups in politics and the media. The "Gay Mafia" and "Velvet Mafia" are typically associated with the upper echelons of the fashion and entertainment industries, and the terms are also used humorously by gay people themselves. The term was widely used in the 1980s and 1990s, and could often be seen in the pages of the New York Post. The term was also used by the British newspaper, The Sun, in 1998 in response to what it claimed was an over-representation of gay people in the Labour British Cabinet.[1] "Lavender Mafia" has been used to describe perceived homosexual elements within the Catholic church. In Britain, LGBT people associate Gay mafia with the Pink pound, and the business interests associated with the commercialisation of the gay sub-culture in major urban areas.[2]
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An early use of the term was when the English critic Kenneth Tynan proposed an article to Playboy editor A.C. Spectorsky in late 1967 on the "Homosexual Mafia" in the arts.[3] Spectorsky declined, although he admitted that "culture hounds were paying homage to faggotismo as they have never done before". Playboy would run a panel on homosexual issues in April 1971.
The term "Velvet Mafia" was first used in an article in the "Top of the Pop" column in the entertainment section of the Sunday New York Daily News in the 1970s by journalist Steven Gaines to describe the executives at the Robert Stigwood Organization, a British film and record company. The phrase was later used by the same writer in a roman à clef about Studio 54 called The Club in reference to the influential gay crowd that became the club's habitués. This "mafia" included Calvin Klein, Truman Capote, Halston and Andy Warhol. The term was tongue-in-cheek, describing a powerful social clique, not some truly devious alliance ruling either an industry or politics.
Gradually, velvet came to be replaced with gay. The term may have gained wider social prominence after it was used in a 1995 Spy article and a 2002 Vanity Fair article.[4]
In one episode of the Emmy Award-winning British sitcom Absolutely Fabulous, main character Edina seconds her best friend Patsy's accusation of a "gay mafia" conspiracy to explain their professional failures.
An episode of television sitcom Will & Grace revolved around Jack McFarland's fear of the Gay Mafia, with singer Elton John as its boss.[5]
References to the Gay Mafia appeared at least three times in the animated series The Simpsons. In the Emmy award-winning episode "Three Gays of the Condo", Homer Simpson refers to his two gay roommates as the "Velvet Mafia" to his wife Marge when they make him margaritas and his subsequent drunkenness causes him to be late for the reconciliation dinner planned by his wife. In the episode "Jaws Wired Shut", there is a float during the gay pride parade titled "The Velvet Mafia", presenting them as a gay parody of a stereotypical Italian mafia. In another episode entitled "Bonfire of the Manatees" Homer mistakes the Springfield Mafia, led by Fat Tony, for the Gay Mafia, thinking they wanted to make a gay porn movie in his house.
The Lavender Mafia has been used as well as the gay mafia to refer to an informal network of homosexual executives in the entertainment industry.[5]
Lavender Mafia has also been used to refer to a faction within the leadership and clergy of the Catholic Church that allegedly protects and advocates for the acceptance of homosexuality within the Church and its culture.[6]
Proponents of the Lavender Mafia theory such as Cozzens describe "a heterosexual exodus from the priesthood", and claim this is partially because of unrestrained gay subcultures in some seminaries, which puts potential heterosexual seminarians off from joining the priesthood.[7] Randy Engel documents the history of homosexuality in the Catholic Church and the Vatican.[8] Michael S. Rose argues that discrimination operates against people who are heterosexual, including screening out genuine candidates with traditionalist views of homosexuality in favour of those with progressive views.[9]
Phillip Jenkins, in The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice, looks at the focus on the gay or lavender mafia in the context of anti-Catholic prejudice in the USA; acknowledging that clerical homosexuality is a real issue, he nevertheless argues "its exploitation in anti-Church polemic is often so outrageous as to constitute blatant anti-Catholic polemic".[10]
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