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Notes -
American rules varied a lot by state and context.
14 states still prohibited 'sodomy' at the time of the 2003 Lawrence v Texas lawsuit, including a few that might surprise you like Massachusetts. While most of these were not enforced or only enforced with 'aggravating circumstances' (prostitution, exhibitionism, or assault) in modern times, firings of people, especially around 'sensitive positions', quite often highlighted ties to the 'illegal' behavior. While a few jurisdictions had employment protections against discrimination on the basis of sexuality as early as the 1970s, only fifteen states had such laws by Lawrence's release, and some states bounced back and forth (Ohio has switches policies six times since 1983, and I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up drawing back some of the gender identity stuff again).
Even where firing (or prosecuting!) someone for being gay was legal, not all jurisdictions had such firings be common or even present. And while there aren't good records about the typical firing -- both parties had as much cause to not publicize the matter as possible -- but cancel-culture like stuff was documented even at that early era. On the other hand, even where such bans on firings were present and enforced the cases aren't necessarily the most sympathetic.
((This is further impacted by the HIV crisis: no small part of paranoia in the 1980s and even early 90s genuinely did reflect concerns about transmission of a pretty deadly disease!))
Most of the overt cases reflect federal policies (both in military and in civilians) in the 1950s and 1960s, with the Vietnam and post-Vietnam era getting increasingly inconsistent over enforcement, but the military specifically officially considered homosexual behavior or identification cause for an other-than-honorable discharge until DADT under Clinton (which generally involved honorable discharges barring physical abuse, albeit with some post-separation pay ramifications). DADT was a thing in the military until 2010, and while some units would put significant efforts into willful blindness, others were willing to act on a cuckold's tip. Some civilian federal offices allegedly retained similar unofficial policies, though it's controversial how much that's supported by evidence.
I've pointed to [JD Vance's grandmother being tolerant in 1993] as one of the parts of the story that seems the least plausible to me, and that's not without cause. A variant less focused on God could well be true, even for an Appalachian Borderer (arguably especially: borderers take blood and friends seriously and religion less-than-literally). But at the risk of extrapolating from tiny samples, I know of coastals getting fired over it in that very year; it was a couple years before my own far-more-urbane father had a Talk with me and my brother, informing us that he didn't care what race of a girl we brought home, so long as we brought home a girl. It took a while for Tolerance to really take off, and if you're younger it can be hard to grip how quickly it came through.
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