day of the conference, four additional speakers from divergent professions were on the program: writer, physical scientist, lawyer, psychiatrist.
Artemis Smith, the author of several popular novels on the female homosexual theme, spoke first, followed by Franklin E. Kameny, president of the Washington Mattachine, a scientist who holds a doctorate from Harvard.
Following a brief intermission, Charles Roisman, a Philadelphia attorney, took the rostrum. He observed that if anyone in the city of Philadelphia practiced brotherly love,
he would be charged with incest. When a police officer testifies against a homosexual, the attorney noted, the defendant is almost always found guilty, and is sometimes sent to a mental hospital, where his opportunities for homosexual activities are enhanced.
The final speaker of the conference was Dr. Wainwright Churchill, a psychoanalyst who set the tone for the entire conference and whose remarks gave to the affair a ringing affirmation of the crying need for a truly objective appraisal of the phenomenon of homosexuality.
MOTHER
I had rather
you took from my hands a dram of poisoned
hate,
vile and dreadful bane.
I had rather
that
than these lowered lids of
shame.
Robert Barufaldi
27