angents

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TANGENTS is one of America's most interesting "open forums" for the reporting of events and the expression of individual viewpoints on the subject of sexual orientation and behavior. But it depends on YOU, the reader, for clippings, reports and letters which can be used for its columns. KEEP THEM COMING to 2256 Venice Boulevard by consulting your local news sources regularly, being sure to include NAME and DATE of publication with each clipping. UNDATED, UNIDENTIFIED CLIPPINGS MUST BE DISCARDED.

THE PRICE OF ALTRUISM

The whole world by now has heard the promising news on homosexual law reform measures in England's Parliament, and the entire subject has, through many years, received such wide and careful attention both in the homophile and general press of this country that more scarcely needs to be said on the nature of the measures themselves again lost due to the dissolution of Parliament.

But a heartfelt tribute is most certainly due to the M.P.s whose dedication to these measures was thought to ensure their enactment into law-particularly to the Earl of Arran who originally sponsored them, and who learned to wear a martyr's crown during his persistent labors to bring them to final reading. In a House of Lords debate on the subject late last fall, according to the Hansard tran-

scripts for 10/28/65, the Earl stated:-

"I admit that many times I would gladly have been rid of the whole wretched business . Sometimes one feels desperate at some of the letters one receives. Most of my post is anonymous nowadays, and such letters do not exactly encourage one to continue. They are full of the most fearful condemnation. Curiously enough, they all seem to quote Deuteronomy and Leviticus, but never the Sermon on the Mount-except one letter from a man who calls the Sermon on the Mount 'that masterpiece of appeasement.' The obscenity of some of these letters passes all belief. . . But then, just as one is thinking of chucking it, one gets another of those ghastly letters from some man who is being blackmailed or who is facing criminal prosecution, or from par-