tangents

news & views

NY NEWS' "Inquiring Photographer" recently asked several peopleabout-town what they'd do if confronted by a blackmailer. Most, it seems, said they'd report to police. All seemed to agree paying was senseless (tho most people seem to pay when faced by the situation themselves). Some said they'd tell the blackmailer to do his worst. Others suggested shooting him-or confessing everything to their own. family. Most assumed that anyone who could be blackmailed must be guilty of some awful crime.

For many homosexuals, even those who've refrained from overt, illegal acts, what-to-do-when-theblackmailer comes poses quite a problem. There seems to be little point in paying, since like postmen, blackmailers always ring at least twice. They will bleed you for years, and probably expose you eventually anyhow. But the solution isn't simple. It takes guts for a homosexual to go to the cops when he doesn't know if they won't turn on him instead of helping him. Many police do the right thing-they are sworn to defend victims against blackmail. But there have been many cases where the victim has been locked up and the blackmailer let go free. It depends in part on how you have been conducting your own life. It depends more on where you live and which officers you con-

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by dal mcintire

tact. As a general rule, you should take along a reliable witness, preferably an attorney, when you talk to the police. Level with them, but stick to the case in point. They aren't father-confessors, and needn't hear about every affair you or your friends have ever had. You take some calculated risk whichever way you handle it. It is possible to take a worse drubbing from cops (some of whom believe homosexuals have no rights) than from any blackmailer, but this is not really likely. Going to the police is the only course that makes sense, and until homosexuals are willing to take risks to defend their own rights and security, they will neither have, nor much deserve, either rights or security.

HEROES AND VILLAINS

Tho this case doesn't involve homosexuality, the letter a griefstricken father wrote the people of Philadelphia few short hours after his 3-yr-old daughter was strangled by a neighbor boy, is a rare display of sanity and understanding.

Warmly describing his daughter and his own love for her, and referring complimentarily to the boy's family and to the boy himself (he had been a good boy) the bereaved father, a math teacher, said:

it should be openly recognized that every human being must, by his nature, express hostility, rage,