Gay Activists Alliance - 1973 interview.

Wasn't Paar gay?

The trans erasure is triggering! No Marsha P Johnson? How very dare they. If it weren’t for Marsha P Johnson, there would BE no LGBTQQIAA+ movement whatever. None!!!

From a comment to OP's link, R1:

I recall this when it was broadcast; that's how old I am. In 1973, Jack Paar was desperate for a comeback, and it was his style to set up this kind of kerfuffle and let it unfold. DIck Cavett wrote that Jonathan Winters wondered aloud if Jack was "deep in the closet," and Winters may have been onto something. In another twist, a co-worker of mine told me he ran into Winters in a gay bar in the 70s. My friend: "Mr. Winters, I'm a big fan of yours." The man replied he was often mistaken for Winters. Me: "Was it Jonathan Winters?" My friend: "It was Winters. No question about it."

Comedy historian Kliph Nesteroff has written about Jack Paar's homophobia, which seemed extreme even for the time, as if the lady doth protest too much. Some of Paar's thoughts:

[quote]There used to be a time when it looked like the Communists were taking over show business. Now it's fairies. They operate a lot alike, actually; both have a tendency to colonize. Just as there used to be no such thing as one Communist in a play or movie, now there is no such thing as one fairy. Where you find one, you usually find a baker's dozen swishing around. I had a little game I used to play when I was an actor in Hollywood, back in the days when Communists or Communist sympathizers were nearly as plentiful in the film capital as yes-men. If I spotted someone in a picture who was a Communist or leftist, I could usually pick out several others. They always came in sets. Now I play it a different way. When I hear that some fairy is producing or directing or acting in a play, I can often name some of the rest of the cast, even if I've never heard it. But Communists and fairies do differ in some respects. The Hollywood Communists had their "Unfriendly Ten," who refused to testify before a Congressional Committee, but the fairies are overfriendly. They do say no occasionally. "When a fairy says no," Alex King has observed, "he almost throws his back out of joint." The poor darlings, as they sometimes call themselves, are everywhere in show business. The theater is infested with them and it's beginning to show the effects. "The New York theater is dying," the late Ernie Kovacs complained recently, "Killed by limp wrists."

Nah, I think his homophobia was very much representative of his times. And it was a value shared by liberals & conservatives alike.

He certainly adored Judy Garland.

I think I will call my autobiography "When a Fairy Says No."