sexual rights, to demand that unconstitutional treatment of this minority is as real and urgent a political issue as any other.

It helps to know any office-seeker's record on censorship, sex laws, police powers, bachelor's tax status, security regulations, vagrancy laws, age of consent, indeterminate sentences and other related questionsand that includes local candidates. At present a homosexual endorsement of any candidate would probably be a kiss of death (such a kiss has value), but that is the fate of unpopular groups newly entering politics. The unwanted supporters of today may be quite welcome

tomorrow.

Since not all of us consider homosexuality the only urgent question in our lives, other public questions may take precedence. We may decide to vote for a man who seems to have the right approach to issues like social security, communism or atomic war-even if his attitude is unsatisfactory on questions of personal morality.

Should the individual vote for the most intelligent candidate, or for the sexy one, or for one rumored to be gay? Should he vote for the candidate who has a firm grip on foreign affairs, or for the one most likely able to block a homo-baiting candidate?

Other problems face the homophile group. How can we build alliances with other groups that are worried about censorship, police practices or sex laws, but which are afraid to be associated with homosexuals? How do we educate homosexuals to accept social responsibility, to vote and make their vote felt? Is it too soon to endorse candidates? Should we lobby for just sex laws? Should we ally with one of the parties, or start our own? What about far-out issues like birth control? Should we leave politics to the individual conscience?

Politicians know that minority-group spokesman-organizations can seldom deliver more than a fraction of the votes they represent, but even that can swing close races. This suggestion may be the shape of things to come, but a lot of groundwork is needed to give it reality.

Alert homosexuals should carefully tally the local politicians records on all matters of our interest. In time perhaps ONE's Bureau of Pubic Information, or some such organization as a non-partisan Homosexual Council for Political Education, might publish these records for the voters' edification.

The time seems not quite ripe...

Homosexuality is no longer an issue to sweep under the political rug, and the homosexual vote may in time swing a balance of power-but not until the individual homosexual accepts his political responsibility.

Lyn Pedersen Associate Editor