newspapers and journals, to the lecture platforms, to the air waves so influential in the shaping of American thought. It could not formulate an ethic and an outlook that would reflect the developed thinking of many intelligent men and women, because there is no medium for the argument and exchange of opinion so necessary in the evolution of a group ideology. Yet, without such a development, a leadership can only reflect its own narrow outlook, which may be far removed from that of the people who are ostensibly the followers. Thus, on such fundamental issues as to whether the movement for recognition should be one of militant protest or quiet accommodation; whether it should be one of struggle to effect changes in the laws or to educate the group to abide by certain laws; whether it should be one of teaching the public to accept the concept of variety in sexual expression or of teaching the group to accept the concept of monogamous fidelity to a single loser; whether the orientation should be to look inward toward an inner group minority and an almost segregated life or toward integration as human beings with those of all temperaments on all of these questions the leadership could not develop an outlook that would reflect the viewpoint of those millions of Americans who are partisans of this minority.

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Under these circumstances, a few people who believe militantly in the necessity of struggle have become demoralized. The situation, they state, is hopeless. Hostility prevents the emergence of the forces that are necessary to educate the public and the gay group, but without such forces hostility will continue its indefinite reign. Such pessimistic nihilism is not infrequently encountered.

Nevertheless, with the diminished hostility in the most advanced circles of American public opinion, with the open espousal of the rights of homosexuals by many leaders who have access to America's eyes and ears, with the increasing attention given to the problem by many of the most prominent and talented writers, a new dynamic process is set in motion that will counteract the vicious circle of do-nothingism that has hitherto strangled the possibilities for effective homosexual action.

The gap that exists between important American thinkers, on the one hand, and large numbers of men and women, on the other, is a sociological phenomenon that cannot remain stagnant. The writers, philosophers, lecturers, jurists, even though they may reach but a few people with their message, impress their thought on teachers, preachers, journalists, and others, whose new outlook, once it has been formulated, is made known to many others. This is a long, a drawnout, and often a discouraging process, with the difficulties multiplied many times by prejudices and fears, but eventually the masses do catch up to their teachers, and then the lawmakers, politicians, rabble-rousers, begin to reflect this new attitude of the people, no longer finding it profitable to exploit a waning prejudice. Thus, as the American cultural leaders speak up, on lecture platforms, in

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