religious activities. There is a distrust for creeds which are repeated day by day, many of whose terms have become absurdly archaic, and some of which, by current semantic values, are a direct affront to reason. Also, homosexuals have not felt particularly welcome in religious activities which heap special and dire anathemas upon inclinations for which they are not responsible. It is not to be wondered that the homophile to the extent to which he feels himself a part of a distinct and homogeneous group desire religious expressions which will be harmonious with his own emotional and social ex-

perience. The heterosexual is inwardly and socially stabilized often confined by the institutions of marriage. and the family, and looks to religious values to contribute a sense of spiritual freedom. The homophile, often at loose ends both inwardly and socially to the point of complete irresponsibility, looks to religious values to contribute the stability which he cannot find in his emotional and social circumstances, and the power to direct his life along socially constructive lines. There is a serious temptation, and possibly also a serious need, for homosexuals to stand together upon a religious basis. If this were to come about, there would be an equally serious danger of falling into the same pits of unreason and insincerity which engulf a great deal of the world's religious thought. Many noble souls have arisen to preach the eternal things of life and the spirit as distinguished from the transitory things of the flesh; and humanity has hastened to build crumbling monuments of stone to their memories, while desecrating the spirit of their teachings in daily life.

The word 'religion' has lost a good deal of its meaning for most of us. We tend to apply it to anything which purports to deal with God and with a tradition and a literature regarded as sacred. We presume, meanwhile, that we know God, and that we also have infallible means of distinguishing sacred from profane things. Since either presumption is rash, any group desiring to find for the first time a community of religious ideas and ideals would do well to consider seriously, at the beginning, what religion should be to the individual and to society.

Religious thought and language, like many other branches of thought and language in this complex civilization, has become compartmentalized. We fail to connect it clearly even with other closely related fields, such as philosophy, sociology, esthetics, and science, and we usually do not connect it at all with the so-called 'secular' affairs of life. Yet if religion has an intellectual and emotional content supposed to be centered around a God, a unitary Creator of all experienced things, it is

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