Sen. Hunt’s tragic death is cautionary tale of anti-LGBTQ movement’s threat to democracy

Suicide, blackmail and Wyoming’s shared grief over one of its most popular politicians taking his own life were all elements of the shocking death of U.S. Sen. Lester Hunt.

A unifying theme of the tragedy is a harrowing lesson that’s just as relevant today as it was 70 years ago, about how dangerous America’s extreme right is when its power is unchecked, allowing demagogues to destroy anyone who stands in their way.

Earlier this month, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow kicked off the second season of her “Ultra” podcast by detailing the events that led to Hunt’s suicide in 1954. The podcast examines how ultra-right politicians work to undermine American democracy and spread pro-fascist propaganda.

During Hunt’s single U.S. Senate term, Sen. Joe McCarthy (R-Wisconsin) was the master of putrid partisan politics, unrivaled at the time. But today McCarthy has many imitators, making Hunt’s story as important as ever to remember.

It spotlights how the Democrat  was blackmailed by fellow senators because his son was accused of homosexual behavior. Even today, the evil behind the scheme is enraging.

McCarthy went out of his way to abuse gay people. There has been progress in LGBTQ rights in the past seven decades, but not nearly enough. And some of the rights that have been recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court, including same-sex marriage in 2014, are now threatened by the same conservative majority that two years ago struck down Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision that protected abortion rights in the U.S.

Because June is Pride Month, dedicated to the celebration of lesbian, bisexual, gay, transgender and queer pride, I’m focusing on Hunt’s story. It offers an important lesson on why Wyoming and federal lawmakers’ anti-LGBTQ agenda puts our democracy in peril.

McCarthy tried to round up thousands of alleged communists and homosexuals and remove them from government jobs, although the senator had no proof of his claims. Hunt was one of the good guys trying to publicly expose his lies.

McCarthy and two of his cronies — Republican U.S. Sens. Styles Bridges of New Hampshire and Herman Welker of Idaho — blackmailed Hunt to try to force him to leave office. The Senate had a 48-47 Democratic majority, but if Wyoming’s GOP governor appointed a member of his own party to replace Hunt, Republicans would take control. That’s what happened, but only until the next election, when Joseph O’Mahoney won the seat back for Democrats.

The trio found a vehicle to hasten Hunt’s political demise. The senator’s son, Lester “Buddy” Hunt Jr., was arrested in a Washington, D.C. park for allegedly soliciting a male undercover policeman for sex. The charges were dropped, but the incident was leaked to a Washington newspaper, and Bridges and Welker put pressure on a detective to pursue prosecution. Hunt’s son was convicted and paid a fine.

The incident, though, was far from over. Hunt was threatened by Bridges and Welker, who said they would mail 25,000 brochures throughout Wyoming recounting his son’s conviction if the senator didn’t leave office. Hunt initially refused.

Ultimately, however, Hunt decided he couldn’t put his family through the turmoil, and announced he would leave office because of poor health. But he confided to several friends he was being blackmailed.

Little was publicly known in Wyoming about why Hunt killed himself until 2013, when former state legislator Rodger McDaniel wrote a book, “Dying for Joe McCarthy’s Sins.” The author, a featured guest on Maddow’s podcast, noted Hunt’s widow was adamant she didn’t want news about the blackmailing of her husband made public. 

“Perhaps the stigma of suicide and the overall pain of the entire ordeal was too burdensome and she preferred it all be forgotten,” McDaniel speculated. Nathelle Hunt died in 1990.

McDaniel later contacted Lester Hunt Jr., who encouraged him to write the book about his father and “follow the facts,” no matter how personally painful it would be.

Soon after Hunt’s death, national newspaper columnist Drew Pearson published his account naming the men who drove Hunt to suicide, but the blackmailers sued him and persuaded advertisers to withdraw their support. McDaniel said Wyoming journalists didn’t pick up the story.

McDaniel said evidence that most directly tied McCarthy to blackmail was a press conference where he announced an investigation into an unnamed Democratic senator who allegedly bribed a police officer. Because the GOP made that claim months before when his son was arrested, Hunt knew even though he agreed to leave office, McCarthy would keep coming after him.

It was the final straw. The next morning, McDaniel wrote, Hunt went to his U.S. Senate office and shot himself.

Hunt’s suicide highlights the political pressures and personal tragedies that can result from exposing someone’s sexual orientation.

In a particularly enlightening interview with Wyoming PBS for its “Wyoming Chronicle” series, McDaniel talked about how the radical right has impacted LGBTQ rights. 

“In the final analysis, I think the McCarthy ‘witch hunts’ had a lot more to do with targeting homosexuals than communists and the ‘Red Scare,’” McDaniel said.

McDaniel said prior to McCarthy’s “Lavender Scare,” gays in large cities were widely accepted and generally weren’t worried about losing their jobs.

But when McCarthy couldn’t prove the existence of communists employed by the government, he fell back on the State Department’s confirmation that it did employ gays and lesbians. “Almost overnight, the public turned on homosexuals,” McDaniel said. “McCarthy convinced them they were the kind of people who would spy for the Russians.” 

“In my view, McCarthy set back the quest for gay rights by three or four decades,” he added. 

Today, the extreme right’s enemy is unquestionably transgender individuals. What are we to make of the shameful attack on LGBTQ rights in Wyoming, when far-right forces in the Legislature follow the national Republican Party’s lead and bash transgender individuals just trying to live their lives without discrimination and punishment?

“We are still confronted today with those situations where politicians choose to demonize entire groups of people,” McDaniel said. 

The Legislature initially rejected the Freedom Caucus’ push for anti-trans legislation, but in 2023 passed a ban on transgender girls competing in middle and high school sports. Wyoming had only four such students at the time, yet this issue consumed hours of lawmakers’ time that could have been spent addressing the state’s real needs.

Earlier this year, lawmakers banned most gender-affirming medical care for minors. But physicians, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, broadly agree puberty blockers and hormone therapies can be essential to the mental health of transgender youth. 

The Trevor Project’s 2024 national mental health survey of LGBTQ youth found 46% of transgender and nonbinary young people seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year.

Let’s not forget the hysterical response of some legislators, parents, and school boards that want to ban LGBTQ-related books. They are especially worried about books with transgender themes, as if reading the material causes gender dysphoria.

There are always lawmakers at the state and federal levels who yearn to be the new Joe McCarthy. They will not hesitate to follow in his foul footsteps and ruin the lives of people like the Hunt family. They blast certain groups for their own self-gratification, or to please national demagogues. The worst thing we can do is ignore them.

“There are and there have been forces in American life who are opposed to democracy, who are drawn instead to strongmen who want to somehow purify American culture and society to bring some form of American fascism to power,” Maddow said on her podcast.

“At the fringe, that’s one thing. But when that is at the highest level of mainstream electoral politics, it’s something else and it poses a different level of danger,” she added. “Who welcomes them into the heart of American power, and what happens when they do?”

The hate that fueled Hunt’s tragic death should never dominate mainstream politics. But no one’s rights are safe unless voters decide to stop electing officials who categorize people as enemies who have done nothing wrong.