and understanding can go and find what they need by their mutual sharing program." It would be a case of helping each other on the AA premise, "that people of like problems can often do more for one another than outsiders."

Miss Jackson then asks, "For who does not need some place where he can go and have his ideals strengthened and recharged and extended? The homosexual needs guidance guidance uniquely geared to his own needs. Homosexuals Anonymous can give this to him."

•

As they read this the Magazine's editors must indeed have smiled a bit wryly and wondered how Miss Jackson could possibly have overlooked that all of this was exactly what ONE had been organized to do, and had in fact been bravely trying to do for ten years. Was she entirely unaware that hundreds, if not thousands, had been seeking and had been given guidance during all those years?

Aside from ONE's work, had not the Mattachine Society been striving to strengthen the ideals of those who came to them? Or, if she were the sort who just can't be around men, then what of the Daughters of Bilitis?

One marvels at her easy assumption that those very same homosexuals whom in one breath she finds just plain disgusting because of their lack of group loyalty and internal unity should somehow at the mere mention of the "12 Steps" from that time forward radiate warm togetherness toward each other.

Perhaps it is all a much deeper and more profound problem than she suspects. It is hard to see how the problem of internal unity and of group loyalty is going to be solved. other than by the laborious methods which ONE, the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis have been so painfully learning over the years. It is even harder to see how one more organization, and especially

one

one having no clearly-defined purposes not already being met elsewhere, could do much to help the situation.

It seems to me that friend Geraldine is a true romanticist, a rainbowseeker, ever looking for the Blue Bird. Perhaps such attitudes are endemic with the frustrated, for this is how she describes herself. Can it be that homosexuals betray a tendency to imagine that grasses elsewhere are ever so much greener than those right at hand?

I cannot see why we need a "Homosexual Anonymous." I would say that we need less and less anonymity all the way around, with more and more acknowledgment of the many advantages and good things that already are ours. ours. Why not settle down to some good active work within a homophile movement that already affords plentiful opportunities for those who are willing?

It is true that as yet the homophile movement exists only in a few of the largest American cities and that those living elsewhere must do without for a time. While this is unfortunate, many things in life are unfortunate, for heterosexuals and homosexuals alike. If one cannot move to an established center, or does not wish to do so, then he must just wait, with whatever patience he can summon. It does not a bit of good to bewail the fact that society is what it is. We can either get busy and do something, or else learn to adjust. Remember, that is the free choice one can make.

When we cease sighing over aircastles and look ourselves over objectively, numerous personal corrections may well suggest themselves. Meanwhile, if we set ourselves to work for the common good it usually turns out that we have thrust upon us about as much togetherness as we need, or can endure. Think it over, all seekers for far-off bliss.

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