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Here's the First Positive Step in a Constructive Approach to Acceptance for the Homosexual.............

BY BOB BISHOP

The author of the following bold article is a Mattachine Society member hailing from North Hollywood, Calif. In this he calls for homosexuals to first of all be people, and then to be unafraid to take positive steps in expanding the under standing and acceptance due their minority. Mr. Bishop practices what he'ls preaching in this editorial sermon. For further proof of that, see his letter in the READERS WRITE section of this issue.

It is lamentable that the great majority of homosexuals have fallen into universal heterosexual behavior patterns. This is especially true of the ethical and seriously-minded individual who, instead of openly defending the only existence he knows, will spend a lifetime perfecting a mask of concealment. The individuals of integrity and attainment who would counter-balance those other pathetic members of our minority usually display their unlikeness in every manner save the one in which the most good would be accomplished. To follow this mode of conduct is to lend credence to the arbitrary and dogmat ic conception of homosexuality it is an attitude of defeat which proves that the person has not yet unfettered himself from the stercotyped thinking of the dominant group of society and has not yet accepted homosexuality in his own mind.

It goes without saying that many are not in a position to declare their sexual proclivities to the world because of family or position in the community. One should not stigmatize those near to him, nor should he jeopardize his means of livelihood. But those upstanding individuals who are free from social and economic obligations should not attempt to hide their true natures. This, of course, is not to say that homosexuals should shout their propensities from roof-tops;

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there are many ways of imparting truth, within the bounds of propriety and good taste.

Perhaps this proposition may seem extreme or unreasonable to the reserved but unless we come forward and reveal ourselves as aver age people in all other respects outside of our private sexual inclinations, the Messianic day of equality will never arrive.

To the intellectually mature person, the citizen of the world, the word homosexual simply means one who is attracted emotionally to a member of the same sex. But to the average person the word immediately conjures up a vision of the lowest and most despicable degenerate imaginable. It is an epithet to be hurled when all other profanity has failed overwhelming and final in its implication.

Crimes of violence committed by homosexuals are presented luridly by our communications media, giving the impression that brutality always stems from homosexuality. This erroneous presentation of the true facts is furthered by the hue and cry against all homosexals after a particularly sordid crime. The logic of such attitudes becomes glaringly clear when the situation is reversed – when a heterosexual commits a heinous crime. NEVER will the word heterosexual be used in a degrading manner when a man commits a crime of lust and violence against a woman or female child.

Because of this universal alliance against homosexuality, it has become a thing removed from the respectable community, and to be found only in the dismal haunts of the underworld. It is a word that has become amputated from all that is clean and wholesome in our culture an evil abstraction that is much easier to hate than the quiet, soft-spoken bachelor down the street, or the spinster next door who has never harmed a fly in her life. Simpler to despise than the ingratiating bank teller who has trained himself to wear a pleasant expression at all times more convenient to reject uniquivocally than the two aloof but courteous men living together peacefully in the upstairs apartment easier to turn from than the neighbor's smiling, good-natured son who is still running around in an expensive sport car although he is in his mid-thirties.

The invisible block to compassion and understanding is thus per manently maintained and we who are at the receiving end of this unfortunate condition unwittingly help its perpetuation by faliing in line with the heterosexual thought patterns.

We are like the proverbial monkey who cannot remove his hand from the hole because it is tightly wrapped around a large nut. Concealment can only bring a dubious and ephemeral security. We must expose ourselves wherever and whenever we can do so to favorable ad-