To paraphrase Sterne, they ordered these matters differently back then. I sometimes think that the high-pitched hum I often hear is the collective noise of our forebears spinning violently in their graves. 
Barney Miller was one of the first, if not the first, cops shows to be very sympathetic to gays. The ‘Marty’ character, while a mincing, flaming stereotype (and a petty criminal) was always treated with respect, as was his formerly-married politician boyfriend. They even introduced a closeted-gay uniformed officer in a story arc, and although Wojo accidentally ‘outed’ him he was never fired. They even listed a ‘Gay Relations Technical Consultant’ in the end credits of these episodes.
I just saw a first-season episode where Marty brought in a gay mugging victim and encouraged him to cooperate because Miller and the detectives would treat him respectfully.
Which is one of the many reasons Barney Miller was one of the best sitcoms of the 70s.
In the Marty episodes the arrests were always about mugging/pickpocketing - not being gay - and he and then gay officer were treated well.
Which is maybe why I was so surprised at the arrest over cross-dressing. Took a hard line on that. They were respectful but followed the law and booked him - they did not let him go on that charge.
To provide context I will mention the 1961 British film Victim starring Dirk Bogarde was made and released while homosexuality was still illegal in the UK. The plot has a married (to a woman if that isn’t obvious) but in reality gay barrister (lawyer) portrayed by Bogarde teaming up with a (sympathetic) police officer to deal with a gang blackmailing gay people. Specifically the gang is threatening to reveal their victim’s are gay. The film is credited with getting the laws on homosexuality changed in the UK. It is apparantly the first English language film to use the word homosexuality.
On it’s initial release in the UK it received an X rating. In America it was initially refused a rating.
TCMF-2L
And Wilmer is identified as a “gunsel”: i.e., a young gay man attached to an older one. Gutman thus is also gay.
But few in the audience – including the censors – got the reference.
There were plenty of portrayals of gay characters in the movies even in the 30s. Charlie Chaplin had what was intended to be a gay man in Modern Times (1936): he was one of the prisoners in the jail, though you have to pay attention to notice him.
In The Old Dark House (1932), Charles Laughton plays an older man whose is supporting a chorus girl. The woman makes it explicit that they didn’t have a sexual relationship, even though she makes it clear she was willing to. She even calls the Laughton character “gay,” though it’s hard to tell if she’s using it as “homosexual.” The term did exist at the time, but it was not widely known (though director James Whale probably knew of the meaning).
Also, in The Gay Divorcee, Edward Everett Horton (who was gay IRL) says something like “This makes me attractive to the ladies,” and Fred Astaire says, astonished, “You?”
But all these are coded references. Portrayals of homosexuals – and especially sympathetic ones – were rare.
Probably the first film to portray gays sympathetically was *The Boys in the Band/I] (1970)
We should be careful about using our childhood memories as evidence. You can’t really expect kids to pick up on a lot of things, especially when it comes to sexuality. Sure, you might not have known Liberace was gay, but what about your parents or other adults at the time?
Liberace rather famously sued the Daily Mirror newspaper and won over a gossip column’s allegation that he was gay.
As for Barney Miller, Inspector Luger, who was a racist asshole, instructed Barney to fire the gay cop. Barney didn’t care about the cop’s sexuality, and ISTR that the only detective in the squad room who was uncomfortable was Wojo. I think that reflected the changing attitudes about gays in society at that point.
My parents would echo Lemur866. You might have someone who is effeminate, a simpering dandy, a fancy lad, a sissy or pansy, a confirmed bachelor, or a pianist who talked about his mother and wore a pompadour and a cape. What he did NOT do was have sex with men.
Or, as my father once notably said about a drama teacher he met, “He’s not queer, he’s just theatrical.”
I disagree. My mom knew he was gay and happily told me…with a wink. It didnt phase her. But then she grew up in Venice Beach and lived around gay people.
Cant edit but I meant Paul Lynde.
It was pretty much an open secret. IIRC, Liberace even sued some journalist back in the '50s for insinuating that he was homosexual.
My mother had absolutely no use for homosexuals, yet she still thought Paul Lynde was hilarious too.
In fact, as I heard it, Hammett intentionally slipped that one past the censors for the book itself, correctly figuring they would assume it was slang for gunman. A related tidbit: about a decade ago I saw writers’ guidelines for a detective fiction web site that writers should know that ‘gunsel’ doesn’t mean ‘gunman’ so don’t use the word. I imagine the slush pile was full of submissions from people who hadn’t done their homework.
As I recall, the Mike Hammer novel Vengeance is Mine deals with this in a way that makes me wonder just how aware the public is. Spillaine expects the readers to understand from the description that a scene is taking place in a gay bar. But of course the person Hammer is meeting there is a woman, one who associates with homosexuals. I could issue a spoiler warning, but I just don’t believe it will come as a surprise to any modern reader that the woman turns out to be a transvestite. But it was led up to at the end as though it would be a shocker.
Another example that is not really what the OP is looking for, but which I think warrants a mention is the episode of the Rockford Files in which a mafia-type gangster finds out his son is gay. His son (this was the 70’s, remember) says he refuses to hide who he is anymore, and the father has him killed. The writers did not have Rockford comment on homosexuality, though he is clearly appalled at the father’s actions. I’d say the message of the episode is that we ought not to be prejudiced against homosexuals, but Rockford doesn’t actually comment because then people would damned sure know they’ve just been given a message and could reject it outright.
Of course people talked about homosexuality. But not in public. It was something you gossiped about in private. This was an age where almost everyone might know a particular fact, but were expected to act in public as if they did not know. So most everyone in town might know where the bordello was, and which men in the town visited the bordello and how often, and gossiped and joked about it with each other in private. But no one would stand up in a public meeting and talk about the bordello, or mention it in church, or talk about it with the children. Until it came time for the children to come of age, on which they were initiated into the secret, and expected to keep the secret themselves.
And some adults would grow up sheltered and never know about the bordello across town, and would constantly be confused by some gossip and never figure it out. Until they ran across someone who refused to play by the rules of the open secret, like your Mom.
I looked up Oscar Wilde out of curiosity, and it seems the earliest drama about his trial and imprisonment was as early as 1936, and wasn’t licensed for public showing; it didn’t make it to screen until 1960, and the first dramatised TV account of Wilde’s trial wasn’t until 1985. Interesting.
Oh my!
On British TV there’s the striking episode of The Professionals - hardly ever the most PC of cop series - called “In the Public Interest” from 1978. Protagonists Bodie and Doyle are sent to an unnamed Midlands city to investigate allegations of police corruption and an out of control force. This involves them sympathetically interviewing a persecuted local gay activist - played by a young Stephen Rea - and then pretending to be members of his group in order to entrap harassing coppers. The episode then climaxes with their boss, George Cowley, confronting the police chief involved.
Pretty clumsy in most respects, but utterly clear with the message that gay-bashing policing is beyond the pale.
I don’t remember people being hush-hush about gays in the 70’s, but I was just a kid. I think it was commonly said that Village People, Queen etc. were gay, although Elton John and Barry Manilow were still in the closet and only suspected.