EDITORIAL

A few fainthearted readers are regularly disturbed by some unpretty contents of the news column, "tangents"-those unseemly tragedies and scandals that are so terribly a part of homophile life today. "Why mention these awful things?" these readers ask, in complaints once well summed up in ONE's pages by Geraldine Jackson: "This is a terrible propaganda."

We do not agree with this view. Why pretend that the "gay" life is always a bed of roses? Yet, when these objections are motivated by the pollyanna complex, there seems to be no answer for it. Persons who demand sweetness-and-light, and a good false front, just aren't likely to be talked into the "Let's-face-the-facts" approach. What we think is needed, what has never before been available, and what ONE is attempting to supply, is the frank and full truth about homosexuals, both the good and the bad. The bad side has already been overstressed, and we aren't trying to give it more emphasis. We are trying to emphasize the good side, and something new, to get both good and bad into proper perspective.

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In more than forty installments of "tangents" to date, less than one third of the space has been given to arrests, trials, murders, police actions and such unsavories though we receive far more such stories than "tangents" retells. On the other hand, we generally are unable to mention most good things that happen to homosexuals-spectacular personal triumphs in the world of the arts, politics or "Society," etc.not because these things don't happen regularly, or aren't valid news, but because the individuals concerned, even those making no particular effort to hide their homosexuality, still could be hurt by such a story published about them. So long as homosexuals who make "good" news can't afford to be publicly labelled, these other sordid stories seem to leave a distasteful and distorted impression. Yet these grim stories are news. They are of vital importance to homosexuals certainly to those personally involved, and also to all who are running risks whereby they might later become involved in such affairs. And "tangents" is still the only source that attempts systematically and fairly to cover what is happening to homosexuals today.

Still, some will say, don't mention these things at all they put homosexuals in a bad light. They make people think we're all criminals. Yet the boy, girl, man or woman who is living an overt homosexual life, and yet imagines himself or herself beyond the reach of legal crisis and

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