Letters

OPEN AND SHUT

Dear Editors:

I have watched ONE for sometime, much as one watches a flower of extreme beauty grow, bud, and blossom. All that I had sought to see, I find is now taking form or has has already come into being. In the fact that I am a minister I was always a little flushed and nervous, when, at my favorite newsstand I bought my copy of ONE. It is now my pleasure to defiantly purchase and read openly on the street and public transportation ONE. I have found that no one but over zealous prudes even so much as take a second glance at me. I might add that I wear as my habit Priest's collar, in accordance with my service of Christian Androgynous faith.

Sirs:

Rev. G. J. T. Los Angeles, Calif.

I have just completed your complimentary copy of ONE for April, 1964, and have never enjoyed a "small" magazine so thoroughly before.

Please let me tell that I think the article on "Life and Art and the Homosexual" by Bob Waltrip should be read by every homosexual in the U.S. today, whether he be 16 or 60. I believe the author has hit the very core of plight for so many people. There are those among us who do not adhere to the word "accept and be accepted" in principle.

Dear ONE:

Mr. S. B. Washington, Indiana

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mrs. R. A. for the editorial in your April issue, and to thank you for printing it. My Mother knows of my homosexuality and accepts it but not quite like Mrs. R. A. My lover's parents just recently discovered us and have tried desperately to separate us. At this point I don't think anything could separate us. I long for the day his parents will understand and accept.

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We have sent Mrs. R. A.'s letter to them in hopes that her views will help them. God bless you, Mrs. R. A.

Gentlemen:

Mr. W. D. L.

Upper Darby, Pa.

I have just learned that I am eligible for the Army draft, and will have to join that branch of service within months. I let you know this because at the time of induction I must cease receiving any and all homophile literature although I greet the arrival of ONE each month, and read it several times. I am grateful to those who edit and publish it-for I would be embarrassed at such an undertaking.

The situation is this: no one suspects me of being sexually deviant, and if it were to become known (I keep the issues of ONE in a steel safety box) I would completely crumble without defense. While I fully realize that others are trying to cope with problems perhaps more more severe than my own, this realization does not assist meunless I deliberately dwell on the handicaps of others in order to try to forget myself.

I am not a crusader or a martyr, and it is better that I shill and sham through life rather than supply grooming ground for the paltry ideas of those understanding individuals who are sympathetic on a part-time basis only. I cannot keep up pretenses very well if others find out about my reading ONE, therefore I shall be cancelling my subscription in the near future. I will let you know when the time comes. Mr. F. G. Azusa, Calif.

Dear Sir:

That did it! Accusing me of going straight -One who in a few days a few days will be sixty. From my first experience at sex as God knows how young I have never known any other world, and wouldn't have changed one minute of it except to have lived without that damn guilt complex. Why must we always be so persecuted? Of course there are rascals in all walks of life, but to be eternally damned as a group is just not fair. And to my dying breath I will never admit that I am a social leper.

I have been neglecting you because I simply don't have the time to read all I want, and I am afraid my poor eyes are failing yearly. But my eyes have seen the glory of glories-the Hermes of Praxiteles. It was so dazzlingly beautiful I could hardly stand to look at it. Previously Michelangelo's David had enthralled me.

If possible every homosexual should see the statues in Athens as well as the architecture and then he will know there is no