...?

which completely destroys Bergler's woodwork with increasing insolence argument. Those who blame Kinsey and in increasing numbers—that for their deviation are rationalizing, Bergler is polemically most effective. as Bergler should know. He should also know the great (if not absolute) truth in the late Jimmy Walker's say ing that nobody was ever corrupted merely by reading a book.

Fortunately, and redeemingly, Bergler has the good grace to be critical of his own profession. It has, he in-? sists, underestimated the chances of in effecting psychoanalytic cures ses of homesexuality. Bergler gives own prescription for treatment, though many analysts will dis with some of its components,

Much of this argument would seem academic were it not for the fact that admitted homosexuals have, in recent and years, launched a drive not onlo a be accepted as the equals of normal it makes sense. men, but honored as a special breid. Angered by the tactics of Mcthe repository of most of the worl Carthy during his State Department artistic talent, and entitled to witch hunt, many of us must have moral corners right and left. The felt unwonted sympathy for the perworst offender in this obscene propa. secuted homosexual. But it is on ganda drive is a confused Madison persecution that he thrives, as Bergler Avenue pervert who hides behind his makes clear. We need join in no wife's skirts and the pseudonym Don witch hunts. But neither should we ald Webster Cory. Intellectually gift let the practitioners and advocates of ed, he has written whole books which a deviation (or perversion, as you could be far more seductive of the will) deceive us and gain license to near-innocent than any mere Kinsey seduce more of the innocent. For all statistics. It is against Cory and his its excesses, this book is a timely lkwho are now coming out of the reminder of that worthwhile truth.

READERS REACTED...

CANT'S REVIEW undoubtedly resulted in a flood of righteously indignant letters from offended homophiles, as well as letters of praise from the anti-sexualists. THE NEW LEADER published some of them. One of those published, as stated, came from the New York office of the Mattachine Society...

HOMOSEXUALITY

As a regular reader of THE New Leader, I have more than once written to praise articles that have appeared in your pages. I therefore request your indulgence in replying to a rather muddled piece that appeared in THE NEW LEADER of January 7 I am referring to Gilbert Cant's review of Dr. Edmund Bergler's Homosexuality· Disease or Way of Life?

Mr. Cant confesses to a lesser prejudice than that displayed by Dr. Bergler, but how much less is a moot point. His hostility is directed in particular against those homosexuals who have tried to present a public case for ac ceptance precisely because a majority of people do not yet share the "live and let live" point of view that Mr. Cant claims as his own. He accuses such people of "openly seeking to make converts" and "to cut moral corners right and left" because of an imagined superiority to the heterosexual.

First of all, having grown up a homosexual in a predominantly hostile world, I and many others of my "ilk" have found it hard enough to be what we are without trying to induce any heterosexual to shoulder the same outcast's burden. This part of our personality, though probably not inborn, is as basic a part of us as other people's heterosexuality for good or bad. We cannot "convert" a heterosexual, nor do we want to any more than the NAACP would want to make a Negro of a white man.

DEAR EDITOR

our own-have acknowledged, or for an understanding of our position by our otherwise en. lightened fellow citizens, I can only add that it was about time.

Althouunfair to Mr. Cant, it is doubly unfair to this writer that this reply must remain unsigned. The present circumstances make it impossible for most of us in the minority to indulge in the bravado of a signature For this alone, I request Mr. Cant's and the tofs forgiveness. New York City

A FRIEND

Gilbert Cant's review says: "The American Legion mentality prevailed, it branded all deviates as perverts and suggested that flogging at the tail of a cart was too good for themthey should be machine-gunned and buried in quick-lime."

The verb "pervert" is defined in Merriam's Webster, 2nd Edition unabridged, as "to cause deviation from the right, true or regular course." The "regular course" in this country is not homosexuality. Hence, deviation is "perversion.

Where and when did the American Legion advocate "machine-gunning" homosexuals and "burying them in quick-lime"? You have often attacked McCarthyism and "guilt by associa tion." Mr. Cant refers to "the tactics of McCarthy during the State Department witch hunt." Isn't Mr. Cant using those same tactics? Isn't he finding all members of the Legion guilty by association? He says, "We need join in no witch hunt." Isn't he engaged in a witch hunt against the American Legion?

Secondly, what we have of late been trying to tell the more open-minded members of the majority is that sociologically, educationally. biologically-in fact, in every way possiblewe are neither their inferiors nor their superiors. We harbor both saint and lunatic, intellectual and manual laborer, libertine and puritan in If it makes anyone happier to call a sexual our number, in perhaps the same proportion pervert a deviate, that's his semantic right, as heterosexuals do. We ask no undeserved but that doesn't justify Mr. Cant in deviating honor or privilege-only the right, openly and from the truth by attributing to the Legion a within the bounds of good taste and public position it never took and by deriding the morals, to the same "live and let live" that mentality of 2.5 million members of that or Mr. Cant so admirably espouses. If this is ganization. The American Legion has made "coming out of the woodwork with increasing mistakes, but so have the Republican party. insolence and in increasing numbers," then so the Democratic party! Governor Stevenson, be it. If some of us have chosen the present Senator Morse and most humans. McCarthyism time to speak out for the equality before the law as applied to the American Legion (or should that many other countries-but, alas, not yet I say McCantism?) is no different from Mc