The Lavender Mafia has been used as well as the gay mafia to refer to an informal network of homosexual executives in the entertainment industry.
Lavender Mafia has also been used to refer to a faction within the leadership and clergy of the Catholic Church that allegedly protects and advocates for the acceptance of homosexuality within the Church and its culture.
Proponents of the Lavender Mafia theory such as D. B. Cozzens describe "a heterosexual exodus from the priesthood", and claim this is partially because of unrestrained gay subcultures in some seminaries, which puts potential heterosexual seminarians off from joining the priesthood. Randy Engel documents the history of homosexuality in the Catholic Church and the Vatican. Michael S. Rose argues that discrimination operates against people who are heterosexual, including screening out genuine candidates with traditionalist views of homosexuality in favour of those with progressive views.
Phillip Jenkins, in The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice, looks at the focus on the gay or lavender mafia in the context of anti-Catholic prejudice in the USA; acknowledging that clerical homosexuality is a real issue, he nevertheless argues "its exploitation in anti-Church polemic is often so outrageous as to constitute blatant anti-Catholic polemic".
Read more about this topic: Gay Mafia