EDITORIAL

Having always felt bound to avoid the charge of influencing minors, we recently had to cancel the subscription of a reader we discovered to be under 21 (though a veteran of overseas army service). Legally, we had no choice, but morally?

ONE's aim is to help society understand what homosexuality is, and to give encouragement, sympathy and direction to those homophiles who are frightened, confused or ill-informed about their condition. It is an indisputable but not widely known fact that thousands of boys and girls of 14, 15 and 16 are fully homosexual (not counting those who are supposedly "going through a phase") and are making advances to other persons of their own age-or older. It is these very young ones obviously who most critically need guidance -and they often ask for it. We think we have answers that can help them. It seems criminally irresponsible to tell them (in order to comply with the law), "Go away. Come back after you're 21"-after you've been crippled by unnecessary fears and guilts, rootlessness and

resentments.

Homosexuals aren't born drifters. They aren't born with chips on their shoulders. They aren't born guilt ridden and fearful. But these are attitudes all too many of them learn during those first painful years after they discover themselves, when, without guidance or sympathy, they face society's withering rejection.

Must we keep turning away our own kind to avoid the charge of proselytizing, of robbing the cradle?

We're not after converts. No arguments or blandishments we might offer could really convert any heterosexual. We don't even wish to pull the millions of fence-sitting bi-sexuals over to our side, or to hog-tie those who are now homosexual but who may later want to change.

We are concerned solely with those youths who are homosexual and know it, who are already in the gay life and couldn't get out even if they wanted to. We want to help them choose the best in that way of life. Hostility and rejection turn many into unhappy, unhealthy, undesirable types. A little understanding at the right time can encourage the development of stable, responsible and healthy personalities. Lacking such guidance, too many fall into bad company, or into the toils of the law, and are ruined before they are old enough legally to seek the sort of advice that applies. As the Church of England wisely pointed out, ordinary dispensers of platitudes are useless or even harmful in such cases. The young homophile needs advice from someone who knows these problems.

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