who are lonely. Somehow we must alleviate fear in persons who live in dread of being found out. Here society loses, beI could have cause they will not become identified with it. completed a chapter in my community if certain persons had seen fit to live up to their true convictions. Self-employed homosexuals who have no fear of losing their jobs and other brave souls will have to bear the burden of effort until that happens. -Mr. H. S., Ohio

(Many letters and other business matters on the Review are delayed or sometimes undone because of lack of time and help... and unfortunately, perhaps, this help must come from our home base, San Francisco. But we hope to do better in 1956!--Ed.)

SCANDAL IN BOISE: LET'S GET AT THE CAUSES

(Continued from page 2)

gation to the community? We are all citizens and enjoy the same rights and privileges of citizenship. But this is not a "one way street. The community also has a duty to each citizen and must protect the right of each citizen to think and act in ways which may be considered "peculiar."

Of course,

this does not apply to acts which are an affront to public decency, which involve the morals of minors, or which are forced on any individual. Certainly Judge Young should not, however, be laboring under the illusion that this "roundup" is going to wipe out homosexuality in Boise. Nor should he imagine that a prison sentence will "cure" the defendants of their homosexuality. For some reason, we humans don't act and react like machines.

We have to get at the root of this social problem before we can solve it judiciously, and I know of no community that has done so. Why shouldn't Boise take the challenge for the benefit of all? A great deal more education for parents and their children as well as community leaders, is needed. I know I speak for the Mattachine Society when I urge you to seek the truth in this matter wherever it may be found.

Sincerely yours, KEN BURNS,

Chairman, Board of Directors, Mattachine Society, Inc.

The MATTACHINE REVIEW is published by the Mattachine Society, Inc., a non-profit, non-partisan organization founded in the public interest for the purpose of providing true and accurate information toward the solution of problems of human sex behavior.

!!! REVIEW

mattachine salutes

New Deal For Deviates

The above heading was given to an editorial which appeared last Fall in the Canadian weekly, Flash, of Toronto, and the editorial—along with two letters which it prompted are reproduced below.

Some readers will note that the editorial also appeared in a recent issue of One magazine. But because the stand taken by the Canadian newspaper is considered such an important precedent in American journalism by the commercial press, the Review joins in giving Flash's strong move widest possible publicity, and salutes it for a bold and humanitarian decision.

With a British Royal Commission and the powerful American Bar Association urging it, the day is not far distant when homosexual acts between consenting adults in private will no longer be a criminal offence in Britain and the United States. Where does Canada stand in this world advance in legal thinking? What is this nation doing to bring our Criminal Code into line with modern medical opinion?

From the evidence we are doing nothing. Revisions of the Criminal Code during the last session of Parliament contained no reference to altering the sections governing sexual deviates. As in the past century insane people were beaten with' clubs to "cure" them, Canada is still punishing people because they were born with blue eyes.

The homosexual was born that way. He cannot change even

if he wants to, any more than he can change the color of his eyes. On this medical authorities are agreed. Why, then, is he punished for something he cannot help?

And why is the punishment so savage? When the bank robber is caught he may be given five years in prison. He comes out with the chance to live down his past. No such fate awaits the detected homosexual. He is a marked man for life. He need not even have been convicted. As when McCarthyism was at its height in the United States, to be even accused is fatal.

But what does his "crime" consist of? It consists only of conduct which heterosexual adults consider repugnant or infantile. It harms nobody else but the homosexual, if it harms him.

Has Society a right to snoop into the private lives of individuals? If two consenting men or women decide to follow their inborn nature, is it anyone's business but theirs? Must we beat the cripple because he had polio as a child? If homosexuals affront nobody by what they do behind closed doors, should not their privacy be respected and protected as much as that of a husband and wife?

Expert opinion to-day believes it should. The Criminal Code says it should not. (The Criminal Code also says that bingo, lotteries and sweepstakes should be banned, but thousands of Canadians enjoy these entertainments.)

In Britain case after recent case involving laborers, noblemen, actors, bus drivers, clergymen, soldiers, doctors, farmers and clerks men from all walks of life and of all grades of intelligence and ability has convinced a growing body of opinion that present laws dealing with sexual deviates are not only useless but brutal as well.