EAST COAST HOMOPHILE ORGANIZATIONS DISCUSS

CIVIL RIGHTS

"We who represent the homosexual minority... hereby declare that human individuals expressing basic differences from their fellow men are entitled to the right to pursue their emotional and sexual happiness freely and equally within reasonable limits; the natural right to live unconventionally in peace with mankind and the right to press for changes in religious, social and legal codes and attitudes to make this possible; all of this to be accomplished by established democratic procedures and from the findings of social and psychological sciences in accordance with the high moral and ethical aspirations of homosexuals everywhere."

A Homosexual Bill of Rights Education Div., ONE Inc. January, 1961

ECHOing by almost 4 years ONE's Seventh Midwinter Institute on homosexual rights, the homophile groups on the East Coast met the weekend of October 10th in Washington, D.C. to argue against the discrimination facing the "second largest minority group in the United States."

The following summary of the ECHO Conference will sound remarkably familiar to those who attended our own meeting in 1961. The Washington Post ran an article on the conference. It commented favorably on the meetings, and it mentioned that there was some difficulty in obtaining a hotel in which to hold the conference, but it did not mention that it was impossible to place an advertisement for the conference in the local papers.

We understand that the text of the conference is to be mimeographed and distributed, but we have no details on this.

One unpleasant feature occurred during the Sunday session (a religious panel of clergymen including 2 Unitarian ministers, one Methodist, one R.C. priest, and one rabbi). The gathering was intruded upon by a member of the American Nazi party, who stalked into the room and announced that he had a gift for the "lousy, queer kike rabbi". . . or words to that effect. The gift was a carton containing jars of vaseline (implication clear). It just happened that among the guests was a young member of the D.C. vice squad. His presence there was known to most people, and, in fact, many of those present had become quite fond of him-and he was enjoying the conference enormously. So before the Nazi got too far, the vice squad boy apprehended him and hauled him off to the police station.

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