All in the Family — Season 8, Ep. 3 — “Cousin Liz”
Original Air Date: Oct. 9, 1977


Norman Lear’s magnum opus, "All in the Family", tackled the most hot-button issues throughout its nine seasons, from rape to racism to the war in Vietnam.

But one particularly resounding episode was “Cousin Liz,” in which Edith overrules Archie’s boisterous protests and gives her deceased cousin’s lesbian partner a silver tea set that held deep sentimental value.

The episode aired while Anita Bryant and her Save Our Children coalition sponsored ballot initiatives across the country that would ban LGBTQ citizens from working in public schools — and the defeat of one of those initiatives in California (the “Briggs initiative” named for state senator John Briggs) was credited in part to “Cousin Liz.” – Seth Abramovitch

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/norman-lear-tv-episodes-changed-the-world-1235714838/

This episode made me the most angry with Archie the entire series. It went for shock value and I thought even Archie cant be this mean. We knew Archie would do anything for a buck and was a racist bigot. But him threatening Liz to destroy her career if she did not fork over a tea pot set was a bridge too far for me. Clearly it was a script written for the times what was going on in south Florida at the time. Over 40 years later teachers in Florida can still be fired for mentioning the word "gay."

A rare episode that was really good in the later years.