AN EDITORIAL

New Deal For Deviates

With a British Royal Commission and the powerful American Bar Association urging it, the day is not far distant when homosexual acts between consenting adults in private will no longer be a criminal offence in Britain and the United States. Where does Canada stand in this world advance in legal thinking? What is this nation doing to bring our Criminal Code into line with modern medical opinion?

From the evidence we are doing nothing. Revisions of the Criminal Code during the last session of Parliament contained no reference to altering the sections governing sexual deviates. As in the past century insane people were beaten with clubs to "cure" them, Canada is still punishing people because they were born with blue eyes.

The homosexual was born that way. He cannot change even if he wants to, any more than he can change the color of his eyes. On this medical authorities are agreed. Why, then, is he punished for something he cannot help?

And why is the punishment so savage? When the bank robber is caught he may be given five years in prison. He comes out with the chance to live down his past. No such fate awaits the detected homosexual. He is a marked man for life. He need not even have been convicted. As when McCarthyism was at its height in the United States, to be even accused is fatal.

But what does his "crime" consist of? It consists only of conduct which heterosexual adults consider repugnant or infantile. It harms nobody else but the homosexual, if it harms him.

Has Society a right to snoop into the private lives of individuals? If two consenting men or women decide to follow their inborn nature, is it anyone's business but theirs? Must we beat the cripple because he had polio as a child? If homosexuals affront nobody by what they do behind closed doors, should not their privacy be respected and protected as much as that of a husband and wife?

Expert opinion to-day believes it should. The Criminal Code says it should not. (The Criminal Code also says that bingo, lotteries and sweepstakes should be banned, but thousands of Canadians enjoy these entertainments.)

In Britain case after recent case involving laborers, noblemen, actors, bus drivers, clergymen, soldiers, doctors, farmers and clerks men from all walks of life and of all grades of intelligence and ability has convinced a growing body of opinion that present laws dealing with sexual deviates are not only useless but brutal as well.

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