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PBS Documentary to Feature Gay Mormon Scholar “The Great Pink Scare” Will Be Aired on PBS June 6 by Seba Martinez May 2006 Joel Dorius, a Mormon who was arrested in the infamous "smut ring" busts of 1960, is one of three gay scholars featured in The Great Pink Scare, an Independent Lens documentary to be aired on PBS June 6. An Elizabethan scholar, Dorius was born in Salt Lake City in a Mormon family. In 1960 Newton Arvin, Joel Dorius, and Ned Spofford were arrested on charges of possessing pornography in a scandal that forced the three teachers out of their university positions. "In 1963, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the search warrants were unconstitutional since they did not properly define ‘obscene materials’ and the convictions of all three men were overturned," Connell O'Donovan wrote in a recent essay about Dorius. "Although the 'porn professors' scandal was nearly forgotten as a mere historical footnote, in 2001 Barry Werth published a biography, The Scarlet Professor — Newton Arvin: A Literary Life Shattered by Scandal (Doubleday) detailing the rise and tragic fall of this brilliant pioneer in American literary studies." In 2004, Dr. Dorius released his own memoir, My Four Lives. For more information about The Great Pink Scare, go to www.pbs.org/independentlens/greatpinkscare. |
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