The writer seemed bewildered that a spot welder from an area auto plant would be among the contestants. “Activity in Covello’s reached a social high point lately with the ‘Miss’ Capitol City beauty contest and the crowning of the ‘queen,’ Aretha, a 6-foot, 200-pound cook from a local restaurant,” the article stated.
The headline on the front of the Lansing State Journal on July 25, 1972, might be described as cheeky: “City’s Night Life Can Get Real ‘Gay.’” The accompanying tagline, “Perversion Downtown Varies,” carried a darker message, at once moralistic and salacious.īeyond grouping gay life with sex work and adult entertainment, as if any of these would be worthy of contempt, the snide ogling suggests that as queer people increased their public presence after Stonewall, voyeurism, not journalism, provided the first draft of local LGBTQ history.
