Interesting. You say he "rooting out queer people from NASA", but that is not what is found in the article. The question is not about James Webb time in the NAS

Interesting. You say he "rooting out queer people from NASA", but that is not what is found in the article. The question is not about James Webb time in the NASA, but rather during his time in the State Department as an undersecretary. He became an undersecretary in 1949, and started to work in NASA in 1961. The Lavender scare occurred between 1947 and "ended" around 1973. In particular it was the 1953 law signed by Eisenhower which barred homosexuals from working in the federal government. The four astronomers leading the renaming petition say that when Webb worked for the state department in the high-ranking position of undersecretary from 1949 to 1952, he passed a set of memos discussing what was described as “the problem of homosexuals and sex perverts” to a senator who was leading the persecution.