and that the present law is unfair. But both groups stick unreasoningly to the premise that it is inherently evil for homosexuals to act according to their natures. The clergymen (with fine talk about the noble example set by countless old maids) recommend lifelong abstinence, and the doctors seem perhaps to suggest this as the ideal aim of therapy. The doctors lack any consistency. Calling homosexual acts "repulsive" and such, they shy away from specifically recommending a liberalized law, although they suggest merely adjusting the homosexual so he can cunningly escape the consequences of a law of which the doctors rather approve. At least the clergymen faced the question squarely, however much one may disagree with some of their sacred premises.

They speak loosely of a general weakening of moral responsibility, or selfishness as if it were chiefly a homosexual trait, and of undefined standards of public decency, which they say homosexuals by their nature affront whenever they appear collectively in public. I would not disparage these ideals, but they require sharper and more thoughtful definition.

Both clergymen and doctors tend to discuss the changing views on homosexuality as if those changes were taking place in an otherwise static moral atmosphere. Geoffrey Gorer's recent study of English mores indicate that the homosexuals are by no means the only ones no longer willing or able to live in the straightjacket of antiquated and unnatural views of morality.

In a highly inconsistent passage, the doctors argue for and against the present restrictive laws, without coming to any clear recommendation, noting the unfairness of persecuting only male homosexuals, noting the blackmail encouraged by the law, noting the disadvantages of imprisonment for homosexuals.

They make a clear distinction between "essential" and "acquired" homosexuals, a distinction that will probably remain more theoretical than statistical or subject

to test.

The booklet as a whole is clearly presented. It gives a fair view of many aspects of homosexual problems. It also devotes several pages to prostitution. There are several elaborate charts, which generally say in complex pictures what could fully and more clearly have been said in a few words, but it makes the study look scientific, anyhow.

Two longwinded, repetitious essays are appended, which the Committee fails to fully endorse, on homosexuality and conversion, where it is argued (with case histories more pathetic in their simpleton cures than in the "disease") that "conversion" is the only answer to homosexuality. Only in the attainment of a personal relationship with God can the individual be sustained in the struggle against temptation. This seems laughable in view of the high proportion of active homosexuals who are actively religious. It seems worse than laughable when I examine the large number of clippings in my files relating to cases where a religious suppression of the homosexual drive has led ultimately to crimes of violence, which of course are blamed on homosexuality rather than being blamed on a stupid theological attempt to thwart nature. The latter of these separate essays suggests that, at some later date, experimental treatment centers, religiously orientated but on the order of Alcoholics Anonymous, be set up.

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