for life. Consider also many others motivated by unconscious or willfully suppressed homoeroticism.

In general, one need not argue a point of justice on the basis of the number of persons involved. Yet so great is the prejudice against homosexuals that an appeal founded solely on justice or right, or any scientific evidence, finds but few listeners. And the deafest ears belong to those who hope by assertive masculinity to avert suspicion of their own past. It could well be maintained that the excessive animus against homosexuals stems less from "fear of the unknown" than from mass guilt feelings of those having known and later rejected this impulse.

The laws that place a burden of criminal guilt on a third of the populace and make every tenth man an "abominable" outlaw are serious laws indeed. Society would do well to closely consider whether such laws are wise, just or even enforceable.

The purpose of this letter, which can but touch lightly on a complex subject, goes beyond airing our complaint against prejudiced, outmoded and unenforceable statutes. It is our contention that in addition to the direct effect of unjust laws, both active and occasional homosexuals are subjected to constant fear and insecurity, slander and villification, discrimination in employment and sudden waves of persecution during which their basic legal rights may be totally ignored. In their rights to peaceably assemble, and to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure, homosexuals have been particularly wronged. We cite the unfair handling of homosexuals in the armed services and in government security cases, and the effects of inept laws such as the sex offender registration laws, new criminal psychopath laws with vague definitions and indeterminate sentences not necessarily based on the commission of specific proven acts, and the loose interpretation of "catchall" statutes such as vagrancy laws.

an

More, the homosexual is doggedly frustrated in exercize of what the Declaration of Independence calls the inalienable right of all men to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. (The Constitution, not using any such phrase, implicitly deals with such rights in the 9th and 14th Ammendments.) Appealing to the right of "pursuit of happiness requires a certain clarity of argument. Critics say such appeal would lead to license and anarchy. Superficially it might seem it might seem that all manner of acts, now considered illegal, could be justified on such basis. But for the homosexual the matter is clear and direct. For him, that is, for the "exclusive" homosexual, there are only two real choices as to how he can live, how he can make use of the nature he somehow finds himself stuck with. He can either thwart that nature (or society may do the job for him) by devoting all his energy to preventing himself from "doing what comes naturally," if I may if I may use so flip a phrase. Or he can release himself, free his energies, allow himself to develop in the way natural to him. (There is much pious talk about sublimation, but this, as a conscious program for bypassing sex energies, generally results in a thwarted individual, drawn like a tight-coiled spring, quite dangerous should he ever lose control.) Another "third choice" is much

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