LORD DEVLIN ON SOCIETY AND MORALS

The London TIMES supplement for 7-8-65 joins the many critics who have taken exception to Lord Devlin's pronouncements on social principles in general, and on the legal regulation of individual conduct in particular. Under direct fire, naturally, is Lord Devlin's opinion that an entity he calls "society" has a "right" to dictate the private sexual behavior of its individual members. After quoting his declaration that "society has a right to protect itself" followed by his dictum that "what makes a society is a community of ideas, not political ideas alone, but also ideas about the way its members should behave and govern their lives," the TIMES deftly proceeds to make mincemeat out of his premise, by showing its lack of relevance to actual sociological facts concerning homosexual behavior and its relation to society as a whole, and out of his definition of society, by exposing its implications. against the freedom of the individual. Thus, Devlin assumes as priori that "society" needs "protection against homosexual behavior, whereas there is actually nothing to prove that such behavior is inherently harmful or antisocial, or that its practitioners are any more "immoral" than the average citizen. He then makes the even more dangerous assumption that "society" and "ideas" have existence or human relevance independent of the individual minds which have evolved them. By whose "ideas" should each individual "behave and govern his life"-his own, or some mythical constellation of "social ideas" congealing in outer space, or-Heaven forbid Lord Devlin's? And why are not homosexuals entitled to their own "community of ideas"

a

about behaving and governing their lives, as much as English lawyers and politicians? We have plenty of home-grown Lord Devlins here in the U.S.A., for which reason it must be remembered that it is out of Devlinesque notions about society that all totalitarian movements have taken form, and it is not only homosexuals who need to be on guard against their dangers.

NUDISTS BATTLE COPS AT ST. TROPEZ

According to

NEWSWEEK for

8-9-65, things recently came to a boil on the Mediterranean beach of St. Tropez, famed tourist and resort mecca. It seems that for many years a remote and secluded section of this beach had been tacitly reserved for French families who wished to take the semitropical sun au naturelle. On this section, rocks and bushes were plentifully available to shield nude figures from prying eyes. But early in August, the beach was levelled, and the nudists "forced to flee before a squad of gendarmes, some cloaked in swimming trunks, and all in the righteous indignation of the law."

The real culprits behind this invasion of a respectable "nudist paradise?" Too many "exhibitionists and homosexuals," according to numerous St. Tropez residents, whose complaints instigated the police 'mop up.' "On the first assault," according to NEWSWEEK, "the flics were repulsed by 300 angry, naked men and women. Unabashed, they returned to the attack two days later with bulldozers, while helicopters directed operations from above. The rout was complete. Not even the smallest nudist child survived the police dragnet." Seems strange to ONE that homosexuals should ever find

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