EDITORIAL

The law in our land does not only prosecute. It protects.

Why is it that of the world's major and most-read homophile publications, few beside the American one, ONE Magazine, are freely mailed and openly sold on newsstands?

Because the U. S. Supreme Court, our land's highest tribunal of U. S. law, has protected, in the case of ONE, Inc. vs. Otto K. Olesen, these basic rights.

Why is it that already in one of our states we have laws on homosexuality which foreign homosexuals, in England, Russia, and France, would give their eye-teeth to have?

Because one legislature at least has acted on what remains a mere recommendation in these other places.

"The law" is not just the vice squad, any more than it is just the traffic cop. Nor is it just the bigoted local judge. Not in the USA. "The law" is not the same in all lands.

Why have you never heard of, say, a French or German homophile magazine fighting its way up through their courts to their land's highest tribunal of law? Because their law does not permit it. Why have you never heard of a Russian homophile organization? Because in Russia things are so bad there is none.

With many uninformed American homosexuals, the glamor of the word "foreign" causes a misconception. It's the old human quirk epitomized by the saying, "The grass always looks greener on the other side". Gay tourists can return with an Italian marble, a Spanish mantilla, and fond memories of the baths in Athens but did they notice there was not one homosexual organization or publication in those countries?

I am proud of being an American. I'd be proud of it if I were heterosexual. But being homosexual, I am especially proud, and just plain glad, I am an American.

Because I know I am lucky to be living in a land whose laws permit me to speak, write, and organize as a homosexual, and whose laws permit me to propagandize for the repeal of those I believe to be inhumane and archaic.

Let's not be tourists in our own land.

one

K. O. Neal Associate Editor