that they should be made easier. But the fact is that this should not be looked upon rationally as a movement. that proselytizes in the sense of seeking converts, or in the sense of trying to aid people to find their way into it, but as a movement that proselytizes only in the sense that it is trying to ease the difficulties of those who are in it, and to enlighten the public on its attitudes toward those who are in it.

This differentiation may sometimes be difficult to make, but I believe that it is vital to the success of any such movement. I do not say that a movement that does not make it is doomed to failure, because I do not believe that any of these movements can fail. I think that inevitably in them there is the germ of historical success. But a movement which does not grasp this point is giving itself enormous new and completely unnecessary difficulties.

I would like to suggest that there are certain prerequisites in this movement to any rational approach to this particular problem. First, I would like to suggest that before we can even discuss rationality with regard to homosexuality, or even with regard to sexuality, we must agree on certain human and societal values. If we can agree that freedom and democracy are human values in themselves, that they are to be encouraged for themselves and not for the ends they may accomplish, as values to be gained even though they may stand as impediments to efficiency and to other aims and goals that we are seeking, then we have arrived at something that is basic and vital to the homosexual. Without the concept of freedom and democracy we do not have the idea of the free interchange of opinion that is absolutely necessary to the clarification of any social problem, and particularly to one whose greatest difficulty arises from the fact

that through the years it has been surrounded by a wall of silence. At one time "homosexual" was the least speakable, least printable word in the English language. Today, it is one of the most widely discussed, most widely spoken about, and this, itself, is a necessary prerequisite for any clarification and change in public attitudes. Without the concept of free interchange of opinion, inside and outside the movement, in the public press, and in the private press, without this as a value in its own right, not just a means toward another end, any approach will be fraught with new and unnecessary difficulties, and this, in my opinion, is irrationality.

I would like to suggest and this is perhaps the key to my own thinking on this question that truth is a value of its own, and not a tool to be distorted as a means to an end. In the realm of homosexuality I hear people on both sides of the fence, the bitterest enemies and the most obsequious apologists, ready to distort their findings, to suppress what they know, or to structure their research in order to support a certain point of view. There are people who say, "Don't say anything about homosexuals' being disturbed; this will hurt us." They do not They do not say, "Are homosexuals disturbed, or how can we find out if they are disturbed, or what are the causes, and are they inherent?" Instead, they say, "Let's not say this, let's focus attention on how happy they are, how well adjusted, or how they can become perfectly adjusted if only society would change, and so on." They say these things, not because they are the truth, but because they think this is going to lead to a certain end.

Truth is an end in itself; it has a value of its own, but this value has been, unfortunately, and unhappily, missing from some of the leading researchers in this particular field. And,

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