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last it. And it was Emerson who wrote "God will not be made manifest by cowards." The homosexual's personal program of concrete social action can include informing carefully chosen individuals. He can then ⚫ feel himself a part of the total movement to build a world human brother

Bilitis is said the isle of Lesbos.

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hood, to abolish forever the forces of tyranny and Man's inhumanity to Man. Because a major part of the responsibility for social enlightenment rests with homosexuals themselves, it is far more practical for each homosexual to light a candle than talk about the darkness.

There's a new organization for women interested in the homophile problem as it affects the

Lesbian....

daughters of

BY DEL MARTIN

BILITIS

to have been a contemporary of Sappho on Her poems, purported to be translations from the Greek and found in the collected works of Pierre Louys, depict a searching and sensitive story of Lesbian love. To lend authenticity to the translations, Louys wrote a brief biography of the poetess and recorded in his Index certain "songs" marked 'hot translated". Many scholars were tricked into believing a lost author had been recovered from the ages. But whether Bilitis was a fictitious character or not, her

songs still live. And her name has become symbolic..

The Daughters of Bilitis is a San Francisco women's organization dedicated to a program of bringing understanding to and about the Lesbian. Starting out as a social club in October 1955, the group soon began to expand its activities into the fields of education, research and law.

Meetings, held twice monthly, include the regular business session and a discussion forum. A heretofore untouched homophile problem, that of "Raising Children in a Deviant tionship," was Relathe topic of a recent discussion meeting, led by a prominent California psychotherapist who is a woman. In April, members of Daughters of Bilitis participated in a panel discussion with members of the Mattachine Society at San Francisco, airing the problems of the male homosexual as against those of the female. (Continued on page 42)

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mattachine REVIEW

the Italian Penal Code:

A STUDY IN EVOLUTION

UNNY ITALY) Seat of the Vatican.

SUN

Vacationland of English poets Land of pizza pie! And country of sane sex laws

Italy has long been a leader in the field of criminológy and criminal law reform, and today-nay, since 1890, there have been no laws on her books against sodomy or fellatio or other so-called "crimes against nature. It is to the everlasting credit of the Italian that the multiple science of criminology-penology, anthropology, psychology, sociology, and related subjects-originated with them with Cesare Lombroso as the founder. Before him there had been no "serious, scientific approach to the study of the criminal." 1

This may seem like an anomalous situation. One may stop to wonder why a country so steeped in Christian traditions should be so interested in the causation of crime and sc Yet lenient toward homosexuals. this is the truth; and some other countries, more modern and perhaps less Christian, are the ones that wreak their futile vengeance upon the sex inveris!

The study of Italy's reforms in criminal law is a study in evolution. Prior to 1890, Italy had stiff laws against the homosexual. Her Penal Code of 1859 provided a maximum of 10 years' imprisonment with or without forced labor, according to the circumstances of the case, for the "crime against nature." 2

However, the old Classical school

BY

Mack Fingal

LL.B.

of criminology, was going out of vogue in Italy: The modern Positivis school, fathered by Lombroso, got down to serious business in the 1870's 3 and came up with the conclusion that penal law should be most concerned not with crime, but with the criminal. The old school thought only of crime, which it looked upon from the point of view of sin and severe punishment. The criminal -the individual and the etioligy of his offense received no attention.

The first landmark, was in 1889, when the forward-looking Guiseppe Zanardelli, while Minister of Justice in the Italian, Cabinet, secured the adoption of a revised Penal Code which went into, effect January 1, 1890 and whigh abolished laws pertaining to homosexual acts. This Code is generally referred to as the "Zanardelli Code." Although it had "Crimes Against Decency and the Family," there was no crime against sodomy or any other homosexual act. 4

The Zanardelli code, however, was still a bit Classical, or at least Neo-Classical, and therefore not entirely satisfactory to the Positive school in Italy and especially to Enrico Ferri, leading expert in crim; inology and the great hero of Italian triminal law reform. Ferri died in 15

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