BOOKS

Notices and reviews of books, articles, plays and poetry dealing with homosexuality and the sex variant. Readers are invited to send in reviews or printed matter for review.

FORBIDDEN FREEDOM, By Aymer Roberts, Linden Press, London, 1960, 112 pp.

This small book has grown out of the disappointment of forward-looking people with the failure of Parliament to be moved to action by the Report of the Wolfenden Committee. To most students and readers of ONE, the situation is now well-known, but it may be useful to recall that this Committee was appointed by Parliament on August 24th, 1954, to study homosexuality and prostitution with a view toward the revision of the laws relating to the two fields. After three years of conscientious objective, and scholarly endeavor, the Report was presented in 1957. A debate took place in the House of Lords on December 5th and the Report gained strong support. The Lord Chancellor, however, made the following remark: "The Government does not think that the general sense of the community was with the Committee." After this remark, of course no action was taken by the Lords. A year later the Home Secretary opened a debate in the House of Commons on the Report with the following statement: "In my opinion education and time are needed to bring people along to understand the point of view of the Committee, viz., to alter the Law, not expressly to encourage or legalize such practices but to remove them like adultery and other sins from the

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realm of the law . . . I hope the debate will do something to educate public opinion towards the type of reform which may be generally accepted." Thus the inaction of the House of Lords was duplicated and the famous Report destined to gather dust on library shelves.

The author states that the purpose of the book is "to offer a common sense, rational view rather than a literary and professional thesis on subject which has already received the attention of many distinguished minds of international authority." About half of the book, "The Colonists of Juno," is taken up with an imaginary correspondence between a young man and his uncle, the former about to colonize a new planet, Juno, and desirous of ideas concerning a new legal code for which he will be responsible, one which will deal with homosexual offenses. Shorter essays cover "Morality and the Law," the distinction between crime and sin, "Sex, the Individual, and Society," a Freudian interpretation, and finally, "The Debate in the House of Commons, November 26th, 1958," wherein the actual arguments are listed with appropriate answers.

While, as suggested above, there is little in the volume that would be new to students of the subject, even the Freudian interpretation of the relation between the individual and society, the case for the homophile is presented clearly, intelligently, and

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