EDITORIAL

The tendency to put blame on others is one of the less pleasant attributes of many homophiles. Not that heterophiles don't also offend this way at times. Finding scapegoats and wriggling out from under blame would seem to be practices as old as man. But homophiles do add a little special twist or two, also, more than a little unpleasant.

There is, for instance, the "pin it all on the Police Chief" complaint. Freely translated this usually means, "Why shouldn't I cruise the tearooms if I want to? Who do the cops think they are, anyway?" Or, in another version, "I like to grope in bars and it's downright criminal for them to hire such cute policemen and put tight pants on them the way they do."

Another blame-it-all-on-them approach is not as easily detected. The tone is less outspoken, the phrasing more persuasive. Everything is couched in rationality, with knowing references to the plight of minorities under the caste system in India, or resulting from the plantation mentality down South. In this vein it is, so we are assured, the wicked Civil Service Commissions, the fat-headed military, the slick deceptions of the State Department which cause all the trouble.

No one could possibly be aware of the injustices which homophiles often do experience without recognizing the real problems to which such attitudes make reference. But are the accusations wholly accurate? Who really is to blame? Could homophiles themselves by any remote chance themselves share some of it? Can any minority group be deemed entirely free of responsibility for its plight if oppression is its lot?

It would be well if homophiles thought about such matters now and then. They might benefit by asking themselves if their conduct is always such as to warrant public acceptance. Less mouthing of phrases about rights and a bit of inquiry as to how social rights come into being for any group in any society might be a healthy exercise to try out sometime.

To be sure, homophiles are citizens. To be sure, the laws are archaic and must be changed, but they are being changed. More of them are about to be changed, for change is in the air. The question is, are homophiles themselves abreast of such change? Are they even willing to change, or do they just keep on belaboring the same old plaints and nursing their same old hurts and ego-bruises?

A good many homophiles are downright boring, aren't they-the gay bar chatter, the cruise news, the everything for kicks kooks, the let's drink it up crowd, the I'm neurotic neuters. Close your eyes one of these days and just listen to it all. Test out what you can make of the sound effects. It sometimes is easier to get down to cases that way, for our eyes have quite a trick of deceiving us with external glitter and gloss.

Let homophiles take stock of themselves now and then. Put themselves in perspective alongside the rest of society. No one who is informed could possibly grant old Bergler standing in scientific terms, still his

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