many homosexuals sense the need for a deepening of their spiritual lives and a vitalization of their intellectual and moral forces has already been widely evidenced by the consistent response of large numbers in our group to any and all appeals for the strengthening and heightening of our spiritual resources, and this necessarily includes a full display of our cultural possibilities in the context of human society.

Do such ideals and aspirations bear any correspondence to "Sodom", with its implications of moral depravity and decay? Quite the contrary, they indicate very strongly a complete divergence, and an emphatic disavowal, on the part of most homosexuals, of any sympathy or even tolerance for what Sodom and Gomorrah actually signify in the moral history of humanity. In terms of intellectual honesty, in terms of potential moral strength, and in terms of a willingness to search fearlessly into all of the amazing and rich nuances of human nature, there obviously exists today a group of homosexually-inclined persons which compares very favorably with those peoples of two-thousand years ago who actually responded to the supremely powerful character and message of the Christ, and to His demonstration of spiritual strength and incorruptibility.

Because of certain social attitudes and misunderstandings, the modern homosexual often finds his or her life confined, almost inexorably, to its lowest capacities and its worst tendencies. Self-doubt, self-condemnation, and a false sense of shame-these frequently make wreckage out of otherwise-promising lives; and homosexuals who have reached some understanding of the problems and the misgivings which so often distress their kind are now in a position to take a critical and objective view of this situation. Only those of exceptional talent, or of exceptional courage, or of exceptional discretion, or of exceptional indifference to traditional judgments, or of exceptional social or economic circumstances can avoid the damning consequences of ignorance and bigotry. The traditional judgment of homosexuality is a lie-and worse, it is a lie which begets myriads of other lies from the sheer necessity of self-defense, arising from the first lie. Homosexuals indeed face a condition which is souldestroying, which corrodes the mind, confuses the conscience, and weakens principle-but this condition is NOT that of homosexuality. It is a condition brought about by social ignorance and smugness, and consists of a continual atmosphere of apprehensions, dishonesties, evasions, and pretenses-and few indeed, so far, are the homosexuals who can manage to remain unscathed by its corrosive effects. Those who have been almost destroyed, but who have retained sufficient determination to rise, at the eleventh hour, from their bed of ashes, will perhaps be the ones best fitted to help remove the scales of blindness from the social conscience. The mask and the lie are our real destroyers. They not only enormously aggravate and increase the manifestations of homosexuality, but they are also the chief obstacles preventing the existing homosexual from reaching an understanding of himself and attaining his own possibilities for individual worth and social usefulness. When all those concerned (and this circle reaches out and out from its immediate center to include all responsible and humanitarian persons) are willing to face each of the major and minor issues of sexuality in a scientific and unprejudiced manner, then adverse social attitudes will be removed. From this all will ultimately benefit, as sexuality itself and its relationship to individual character and personality constitutes the basic problem-and a problem which is shared in common by all of mankind.

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