vey, save for the pitiful cases which, at the behest of family, minister or psychiatrist, strive desperately to contort themselves into simulacra of heterosexuality, by marrying. Strangely enough, as their public behavior by no means accords with their private conduct, in the majority of cases their behavior might more justly be termed amoral than asexual.

Sociologists and those dealing in mental health problems never tire of telling us of the dangers both to the individual and to his society whenever preaching and the practice are found to be at too great variance.

The admitted homosexuals are a smaller group, comprised mainly of those claiming to be more intellectually sophisticated, and of the flaming queens. This group, in whatever terms, express pride in its homosexuality, finding nothing either sinful or shameful in it. They feel that homosexual men and women should be in every way as free to practice their sexual preferences as are other segments of the population; that they should enjoy the same legal and social privileges as others, no more, but also, no less. They feel themselves under no obligations whatever to conform to the particular social standards of any particular community; that instead of their adjusting to popular mores, the mores should be adjusted to their own wishes. The demands of rationalism and basic human freedoms admit of no other interpretation, they state.

This group feels that habitually to think one thing and act another breeds nothing but hypocrisy in a society and schizophrenia in the individual. They say, "I am homosexual. I am proud of it. I shall live my life according to the dictates of its nature, and neither social pressures nor legal prohibitions (which are probably without any moral legality' anyway) will turn me from this

resolve. If society does not wish to accept me, or to understand me, that is not my problem, for, to paraphrase Louis, The Sun King's, "L'etat, c'est moi," "I am Society."

This rugged individualism has an almost anarchistic quality that is yet as American as the "hot dog." It is in the spirit of that old Colonial flag, emblazoned with a rattlesnake and the motto, "Don't tread on me." This is the individualism of the queen, flaunting make-up and a bracelet or two in the face of an amused or embarrassed public, and of the intellectual, saying, "I am proud of being a homosexual," then throwing this declaration into the very teeth of public opinion.

Are such persons really serious in their views? Do they mean what they say, or are their words but a form of compensation for hurts and insults they may have endured? That we should ask such questions shows the very depth of the infection we have suffered through centuries of religious and other propaganda. If we can somehow manage to render ourselves quite objective, lifting ourselves, as it were, out of the epoch in which we live, we begin to wonder if it is not we who have been guilty of absurdities, we who are not to be taken seriously.

In this objective vein we would be forced to inquire of what the homosexual is deprived, by virtue of his homosexuality, in either realms domestic or public, moral or ethical. Is he, for instance, debarred from expressing any of the classic Seven Virtues? Is he more prone than his brothers to succumbing to the Seven Deadly Sins? Is he subject to particular bodily deformities? Is his IQ inherently deficient? Or, is he barred from "normal" sexual pleasures?

Ask any homosexual about this point. Try to offer him "normal" sexual pleasures, so-called, as a substitute

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