is an overt homosexual. We merely note the existence of the sexual or erotic element, just as it is indisputably present in the religious devotion of many elderly

women.

Many Churches are almost frank in advising the homoerotically-inclined or feminately-inclined youth to enter the Church service (while banning the overt homosexual) for this Christian society will permit them little other respectable place in life.

The accentuated difficulties of the homosexual (and as Kinsey points out, the basis of the legal injunction against the so-called crime against nature) in Western society are almost entirely due to the Judao-Christian notion that all sex is a sort of sin, with a special dispensation granted those acts necessary to procreation, and absolute damnation for all acts not so aimed. This places homosexual acts under the supreme curse.

Our mores, however, are quite exceptional in insisting (for the record only) that the purpose of sex acts, from the viewpoint of the participants, is solely procreation, rather than human affection, or sudden passion, or simply pleasure. Despite this ridiculous noton, in all our romantic literature, there is hardly a story of two people approaching sexual union purposely to produce a child (except where an heir is necessary to the plot, which in such a case, is likely to be treated whimsically) and such a story would surely make silly reading.

Thus in the Christian world, still somewhat embarrassed by the "masculine" qualities of practical living, contrasted to the "feminate" qualities of the faith, in a world which ostensibly believes all sex to be evil, and "wasted" sex doubly a sin, we have millions of men with a slightly guilty conscience knowing their own actions have often sinned against their precepts. In line with Pauline logic, the homosexual is chosen for scapegoat.

The attitude toward homosexuality is a major element in Christianity's schizophrenia. It is sadly true that the Church has as yet seldom faced up to the complex moral issues before it.

A few bold clerics have faced up to the issue of pacifism, which Christ seemed to enjoin. Many have tried to untangle the problem of the Christian attitude toward wealth and toward egalitarianism. It is time that the honest segments of the Church dare to initiate a bold investigation of the problems of effeminateness and homosexuality, and to do it in the spirit of him who said,

"Judge not, that you be not judged, For with the judgement that you pronounce you will be judged,

And the measure you give will be the measure you get."

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