Mr. Desborough across the street thinks something should be done because the old lady ought to face the sun instead of always turning her back to it. Dr. Snodgrass shakes his head and pulls his chin because Mrs. Merriweather is out of touch with reality. As for me, I think that Mrs. M. has contributed quite a bit to the enliving of my reality. Of all my neighbors she is the one I shall be least likely to forget. But if, of course, Mrs. Merriweather kidnaps her neighbors' pet cats. and disembowels one of them each time the moon is full, that is going too far. Although nothing in the world is more useless than a pampered cat, we love our cats. And Mrs. Merriweather's subjective life is getting out of bounds and encroaching upon our Own subjective worlds. All I am driving at is that there are a great many things in the lives of all of us which are irrational and subjective in their natures and it is futile and inappropriate to apply objective and rational standards to matters which are properly subjective.

Although ideological and aesthetic issues are involved, the moral factor also emerges. We are a Christian nation, and even if we were not a Christian nation, most of the major religions of the world base morality on some principle very like Christ's law of love. Love thy neighbor as thyself. If a friend came to me for lunch, and I knew that he was mad for sardines, I'd give him his god-damned sardines because I liked to bring that smile of greasy bliss to his face-but on my side of the table I'd be eating Liederkranz cheese to drown the stench! I'm perfectly willing to tolerate whirling dervishes because thereby I am helping to guarantee toleration for my own forms of worship. I will jealously protect Mrs. Merriweather's eccentricity because in preserving her liberty I am strengthening my own. But, on the other hand, we must, as gently as possible, but quite firmly, prevent the sardine lovers, the dervishes, the Mrs. Merriweathers from imposing their patterns upon the rest of us when their enthusiasm and zeal get out of bounds. Quite seriously, I believe that Christ's law of love is the moral touchstone by which to judge men's acts. I do not think it possible to take a stronger moral position than to submit all the issues of the homosexual problem to that law. The homosexual has the moral right to demand neighborly love from the heterosexual. The heterosexual has the right to demand the same of the homosexual. I believe that Christ's law of love

-and, as I have pointed out it is not peculiar to Christianity but is recognized as imperative just about everywhereis the moral Constitution of the human race to which every code and custom must conform if it is to deserve our obedience. We have every right to refer every conflict and controversy to that supreme law, and, on the other hand, our own consciences must acknowledge it supreme, for ultimately it is in terms of that law that we know ourselves to be guilty or innocent. In the final analysis it is of little importance what type of sexual intercourse a man finds most satisfying and meaningful, but the quality of emotion that he bestows upon his love is all important. To consider homosexuality in the light of the law of love startingly trans-

forms all the issues.

It seems to me that it matters very little, really, whether a man goes to bed with a woman or another man. It matters little what they do together in their bed. It matters much whether a lover is an honest man or a cheat, whether he is vain or modest, whether he is loyal or faithless, whether he is charitable and compassionate or ruthless and cruel, whether he is brave or cowardly, whether he is sensitive or callous, whether he is generous or mean. These are the things which make the difference between a good man and a louse. Whether one is homosexual or heterosexual has nothing to do with the case. Everything depends upon what kind of a homosexual one is, or what kind of a heterosexual a man may be.

Speaking for myself, I am not ashamed of my sexual pleasures. The things that trouble my conscience are my dishonesties, my vanities, the ruthless things that I have sometimes done, my cowardices through the years, my failure to understand my friend when he most needed understanding, my pettinesses. When I stop and soberly take inventory of my life and what I am it is of such things that I am ashamed.

It seems to me that most of the serious problems arising in homosexual relationships do not concern the erotic aspects but the sado-masochistic elements in them. The desire to hurt and the desire to be hurt, the desire to dominate and the desire to be dominated, the guilt of one's sadism and the shame of one's masochism, those are the great stumbling blocks in homosexual and heterosexual relationships. It seems to me that merely to recognize the truth of this is to make a long stride forward.

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