how dreadful they really appear? I suppose not. But they are their own worst enemiesand to others too!

Dear ONE:

Mr. C.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Your list of "what to do" if in trouble made me laugh out loud. I would like to see what you would get in "demanding" anything of an officer of the law. A good whack in the puss most likely. No, mind your own business and you'll have no trouble, as a correspondent wrote you. If you've kept your secret-keep it. After all, no one gives a damn who cares for us.

Dear Sirs:

Mr. R.

NEW YORK, N. Y.

There is a lot I would like to say to Mr. C. (Letters, January, 1959). It is too bad that he and his 15-year old "fine youngster' should have been exposed to the kind of situation he describes. What is more unfortunate, however, is that this erstwhile persecuter who is finally trying to become a bit more understanding does not realize that the behavior which so offended him is nothing more or less than one manifestation of the inevitable urge to want to strike back at the persecution and supression which is all this country has to offer the homosexual.

I would hazard a guess that the majority of the hoodlums" Mr. C. mentions are sons

of respected families from little towns all over the country-fellows who, as soon as they found themselves at variance with the smug conventionality of their little communities, were made to feel ridicule and rejection and forced to leave their homes with mixed feelings of regret and disgust.

Of course they have become embittered and sour, and the type of behavior Mr. C. describes can only be expected. Don't tell me, Mr. C., that it is up to these trampled and taunted individuals to earn a measure of respect. It is instead our sick society which must first accord them a measure of respect. I wouldn't be surprised if that "bleached idiot" is basically a fairly good guy and that Mr. C's 15-year old would actually be in much safer hands among a group of "queers" than with a rough-neck gang such as we read about, whose pastime is beating up or murdering someone now and then.

I don't feel that the homosexual can be blamed too harshly for any form his rebellion takes. It is much to the credit of the homosexual that this rebellion does not become more dangerous and damaging than it does, with the prying and persecution by the police mounting apace and the taunts and ridicule of society.

Homosexuals, like heterosexuals, are human beings, not angels. It's hard to expect a man to act like a prince when he is being treated as a bum.

Dr. E.

-, Michigan

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