sexual activities of the entire population and those theoretically ideal standards which legal codes seek to uphold. Thus that a few are caught and punished is even more reprehensible.

In sexual matters the law should be concerned with the protection of youth and the guarding of the public against force or predatory conduct. Other sexual behavior should be rooted in personal liberty and should be legally protected. Closely related, the right to peacefully meet in places open to the public is no more than the right of assembly granted to all citizens and should not be denied to the homosexual.

It seems to us the first duty of the police is to prevent crime, not to provoke it for the sole purpose of its prosecution and punishment. Surely the utilization of plainclothesmen to try to induce citizens to perform homosexual acts for the purpose of arresting them is neither the best use of our police force nor an act of public justice.

We also believe that Americans should reject any custom or law which would make any public authority the judge of private, personal moral convictions. Certainly such an authority should not permit a civil right to be whittled away indirectly any more than it should be allowed to be destroyed directly.

We feel that the test of a democrat-

ic society is in the extent to which it suppresses individual thought and action. For some time there has been a demand for regulation of every aspect of human behavior and the repression of more and more conduct that is supposedly different from the so-called norm. This in itself is an expression of a growing tendency to employ broad standards and vaguely worded laws which seem to equate sin with crime, and which are used by the police to scoop up possible violators as they see fit. The excessive concern of some Americans over what are essen-

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tially areas of personal expression in sexual behavior, exercised between adults in private, can result in our becoming a nation of professional snoopers and privacy invaders, a society of voyeurs seeking to expose the scandals and defects in others which we refuse to recognize in ourselves. Laws based on such whims are a step backward. Such tendencies are diametrically opposed to the principles of equality we profess to maintain, reducing suspected homosexuals to the status of second grade citizens and inferior human beings. In addition, it is our firm belief that any law which is unenforceable is worse than no law at all.

Besides the violations of civil and human rights which these injustices imply, there are issues which reflect concern for human tragedy and waste of potential contributions to the growth of our society. The expenditures of public monies on witch hunts is only the smallest part of such waste.

Greater losses occur in the reduced capacity of the individual to produce either for himself or his society. The dispersal of energies in countless small, yet terrible tragedies, seems unnecessary. We feel the chief goal in dealing with homosexuals should not be to try to reorient their sexual propensities through punishment and intimidation but rather to help them attain a satisfactory self-image and a meaningful relationship to society. Indeed, no one should be forced to suffer in silence or live in fear.

We believe that the only sensible criteria for judging human relationships are the maturity, necessity and justice inherent in each relationship. Social and legal justice is essential. Society must not suffer from cheap harassment perpetrated in the name of virtue when, in fact, it is the terrible vice.

Reacting to these pressures, the persecuted minority is forced into ghettolike in-groupisms and secrecies which