Assuming that this organization can grow quite rapidly, because of word-ofmouth publicity that something, at long last, is being done to start a knock-downdrag-out war against ignorance and prejudice, the organization can eventually have, let us say, a million members.
That would only represent one out of six homosexuals, so the figure is not too wild. One out of six ought to be interested enough to join.
After all, no names.
Okay, so you've got an organization of a million anonymous members. (Queers, Anonymous?) Anyway, never mind the humor. No American politician regards as humorous a million votes.
Now, we get down to the live torpedo end of this project: money. Let's say the membership dues are very modest: fifty cents a month. That's $6.00 a year, which isn't very much. But multiply that by a million, and you have the gigantic fighting strength represented by $6,000,000.00 a year plus a million votes.
Nobody will care whose money it isthat of screaming pansies, delicate decorators, or professional wrestlers. Nobody will give a damn because this is the U.S.A. and money talks. That kind of money roars.
It does some of its best roaring in politics, and in the halls of justice, and in the realm of public education.
That kind of money pays for highpowered lobbyists who know how to get bad laws repealed, and decent ones enacted.
It pays for legal protection for homosexuals who are being illegally perse-
cuted by the witch-hunters. And I mean top-flight legal protection. Good lawyers ain't scared of nobody.
It means public education, for if Coca Cola can do it, so can anybody. Anybody with that kind of money, that is. (Naturally, the same methods would not be employed, but other techniques of proved efficacy.)
And maybe-and this would be lots of fun-some of it could be used to hire skilled private eyes to investigate into the private lives of the queer-baiters, on the theory that the man who casts stones is himself seldom free from sin. Wouldn't that put the fear of God into some of them!
A few million dollars a year can raise more hell than anyone would ever dream possible!
Moreover, such an organization could readily win the support of hundreds of thousands of fair-minded, intelligent nonhomosexuals including doctors, lawvers, educators, psychiatrists, sociologists, and 'others who have nothing to lose by such support. Many of them have long been speaking up for the homosexual anyway.
Now, here's the point-maybe the most important point of all: I believe that the average homosexual would rally to this idea, for it would be his only chance to fight for his rights. I think he would enlist the cooperation of his friends and acquaintances. I think it could mushroom but fast.
It should be the function of ONE to start this organization by launching an immediate campaign.
The chief purpose of ONE should be
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