This month we return to further analysis of the Southern California Society which insists in its statement of purposes that all its members are merely academically interested in the subject of homosexuality. No one expects them to admit being homosexual-although there is no law against that state of being-nor should they expect anyone to believe them when they claim they're not. Their professed motive for all this is to avoid antagonizing the public which apparently doesn't mind a little white lie from a passel of perverts now and then. The following account of the Mattachine Convention does not pretend to be objective. It shouts furiously and isn't ashamed to admit it. And it, incidentally, tells the truth.

Who Is This Man?

The Elegant Debacle

The Convention in November, the first since the constitutional convention of last spring, was ostensibly convened to make minor, administrative alterations in the Constitution and to adopt by-laws. The first day, Saturday, was relatively uneventful, not to say dull-until the evening. At that time a banquet ($3.00 per plate) was given for the delegates who could afford it. Various speeches were made and awards presented, one to Dale Jennings, Editor-in-Chief of ONE magazine. Mr. Jennings' acceptance speech for ONE, brilliantly delivered and embracing the highest principles of the original Mattachine, was greeted by something less than enthusiasm. The following day it was proposed from the floor of the Convention that the Society start another publication in competition to ONE and with a vastly different orientation.

And then (it's now Sunday, November 15th) the Mattachine-baiting began. The Preamble of the Society, democratically adopted by unanimous vote at the Constitutional Convention, contained the phrase:

"We, the members of the Mattachine Society, hold it necessary that a highly ethical, homosexual culture be integrated into" the dominant, heterosexual society.

one

After a bitter fight the wording was changed roughly to the following:

"We, the members of the Mattachine Society, believing in sexual equality..."

Nothing missing except the spirit, the drive, the meaning, the purpose, the essence of all that Mattachine has come to signify to thousands who have heard about it from friends or read about it even though they may never have attended a single meeting.

"I'll Turn You All In!"

This action, unprecedented in the annals of constitutional democracy (a preamble can never be changed unless the organization is dissolved), was forced through the Convention by as unsavory a tactic as has ever been used anywhere. Several delegates, after vicious and irrational attacks on the characters of the founders of the Mattachine, maintained that the Preamble reflected the ideals of those founders and had been railroaded through the Constitutional Convention. At this point one delegate rose to assert that he had been closely associated with the F.B.I. for many years and would consider it his duty to report the activities of the Convention to the police if these principles were reaffirmed. His point seemed to be that unless the Convention amended the Preamble he was going to call the cops to fulfill his

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