of decency would be outraged. And why shouldn't it be? I would be asking you to live absolutely contradictory to your nature; asking you to violate the inherent morals conducting your life. It would be a desecration-and not less. Why should it be different with the homosexual? Why should he be ordered to do something which to him is appalling? or unnatural?

If he or she has told you the startling truth that they are homosexual, be gratified in the assurance that they trusted you enough to confide in you. Had they used subterfuge, your love and trust in them might have been more apt to injury, that is, if discovery were made in another way. And, perhaps, in your case it was. But was he or she entirely to blame in keeping the secret from you?

I like to think of love as a kind of bridge, secure and high-where understanding may may cross confidently and without fear of that bridge crumbling. I think that if your son or daughter does not share with you, reveal to you, the most important thing in his or her life, you have in some way weakened the bridge or shaken the understanding. Often as a result rebellion occurs: captiousness -promiscuity parental hatred etcetera, or, the more introverted: self-condemnation distrust suspicion vulnerability etcetera. which lead again to more pronounced social problems and other unacceptable and unwholesome manifestations.

It is understandable that you suppose yourself the parent of an unusual type. Homosexuality has always been a kind of weird unreality that exists on the "other side of the fence," a hypothetical fence that skirts on "other" horizons. "The idea!" you declare, "to not be like the Jones' is unthinkable!" Some of you are not

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remotely aware of the number of Jones' who are among homosexual people. And why should you be aware of it, when only the overt homosexual is recognized by you. A lesbian friend of mine, well dressed, with a captivating smile and a propensity for striking up friendly conversation, had this to tell me. "We'd been talking at length, this matronly lady and I on a bus, about some movie or other we'd both seen and somehow the conversation drifted. The lady leaned over to me in a confidential manner and said how she 'met the strangest thing last night at a bridge party. Apparently the 'strange thing' had short hair, a deep voice, was husky and ostensibly single. 'Could tell right off she was one of those queers. I can always tell. I don't know why-must be a second sense, I suppose."" The woman descended the bus after this startling untruth and after having expressed a sincere hope of meeting this friend of mine again. "Such a sweet and charming person you are, my dear,” she had said to her. "So nice to meet a friendly person once in a while in this cold world of ours." Had she known that she was speaking to a young lesbian who is a tireless worker in a homosexual organization, it might have come to the woman as a bit of a surprise. To learn that homosexuals are not so dreadful or "apparent" as she supposed, and that homosexuality is not synonymous with the hairy-lipped female the smooth cheeked male of a "twilight world." would have, I think, shaken her somewhat.

In the several families I have known in which a homosexual was a member, no family was either different from or similar to the others in any way. One such family I know is aware their son and brother is a homosexual. His loneliness had gotten the best of him, he told me. There was no one at home with whom he could talk

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