Human Rights A Day

Archie Bunker’s All in the Family debuts television’s first gay-themed episode. With the exception of television comedian Ernie Kovacs poking fun at an effeminate character he played in the 1950s, it wasn’t until the 1970s that a gay character played on television. It should come as no surprise that the loveable bigot, Archie Bunker from All in the Family, was the one chosen to encounter that character. First aired on February 9, 1971, with the title “Judging Books by Covers,” the program produced by Norman Lear went like this: Archie’s son-in-law, Michael (“Meathead”), brings home his friend Roger who Archie thinks is gay. It turns out he isn’t, but Archie gets a rude awakening when he discovers that his long-time friend and former football star Steve was in fact gay. Bunker had a hard time coming to grips with the notion that his beer-drinking buddy was homosexual as this didn’t fit his stereotype of gay men. For Bunker, this created a dilemma of staying loyal to his friend or abandoning him because of