society, the agencies that transmit its fundamental moral attitudes, have not by one iota been influenced towards sexual liberalism. These social structures, agencies, institutions and establishments that do seek either the propagandizement of 'enlightened' sex information or attempt to prevent the horrors Ralph experienced, are all secondary and relatively unimportant arms of society. They bear minimal psychic weight with the individual since most of them are introduced to him after his psychosomatic organization has become established, after the damage has been done. . ."

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He has much of importance to say on the wide-spread concept of homosexuality as a sickness. "Within the last few decades the idea that homosexuality is an illness, a mental disease, an abnormality of behavior falling within the province of psychopathology, has gained broad acceptance . . . Today, although many of my colleagues in these fields have abandoned that naive view, modified it, or tend towards the conceptions I have outlined .. it is still clung to throughout all levels of society as an article of faith. In humanitarian terms, although mistaken, it is a 'good' idea. It has benefited the invert to no small degree. He is no longer regarded by the public as a wilful criminal but as a sick criminal... Psychiatry too has been taken in by this myth, has, indeed, adopted it wholesale. Hence, the rebellious, the protestant-in short, the nonconformist is considered sick and subject to all the arts science can muster or fashion to cure him of his sickness. . . . Declaring the homosexual mentally ill, therefore, brings him within the compass of this regressive view and the range of all the 'therapies' devised to insure his conformity."

The remainder of this essay contains a sketchy account of the emergence of a homosexual movement, with organizations and publications all over the world. He summarizes: "It is all there: a history of hostility, contempt and oppression, the appearance of an idealistic leadership, the formation of secret societies and an underground movement, the recruitment of allies and, at last, solidification and the attempt at expression. It means, in short, that another minority is discovering itself and beginning to struggle for what it regards as its rights . . ." Dr. Lindner's discussion of this aspect of the homosexual question ends on a pessimistic and sobering note. "The world-wide movement to organize homosexuals into a clearly defined minority for the articulation of its aspirations is the most ambitious as well as the most idealistic of defenses. I am personally convinced that it is doomed to failure, although I cannot help but admire the courage of those involved. . . . I believe this bold maneuver cannot succeed because it is based on the false assumption that the world is ready to listen and acknowledge the special plea of the invert bloc; that society is, indeed, in the midst of a sexual revolution. To me, this is wishful thinking. It makes the serious error of mistaking social defenses against homosexuality for evidence of sympathy towards homosexuality."

His final word of warning to the world and his wife: ". . . culture, the maker of man, can also unmake him. It can, as it now threatens to do, unman him. This occurs when it is permitted to petrify, when its institutions and agencies lose their flexibility and harden into forms that no longer accommodate to the restless, rebellious nature of the human animal. ... . It is the literal nightmare of most thoughtful persons today that we are rapidly approaching-or have arrived at the point where our society ceases to humanize man, but, instead, dehumanizes him. . . . It is this fear which has raised the hue and cry over conformity, since in conformity lies the germ of social petrification."

Luther Allen

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