H: In my future you'd merely be seen as a person of limited tastes. But I don't want to be arrested in your present for liking, men, coq au vin, bridge, Modigliani, and dry sherry! Thank God that some people are forever deprived of so-called normality so that they can one day see how shallow and intolerant it is. When homosexuality achieves legitimacy, it will be seen as a branch of a river rather than a contamination of the source. When it is given, unity, homosexual culture will be seen as constituting unique view of experience, offering insights to all people. The homosexuality of great figures of the past -not only your Prousts and Whitmans—will be revealed, as Byron's is beginning to be, and

a

he the outstanding popular symbol of the Don Juan! All the dearly-bought insight that has come out of a closed-door suffering which can no longer bear its isolation will be given to society at large.

SG: I can't see this occurring in my lifetime. No matter how sloppy-liberal I ever get I'll always see homosexuality as anti-masculine, perverse, a short-circuit of nature's obvious logic in creating two sexes. And a pathological Star of David for those who have to carry it.

H: You're the prisoner of what you think is your honesty. We live in a torn-open age where each minority is determined to proclaim itself as good as the

self-appointed judges of a life which no longer provides a rational basis for their prejudices. We homosexuals will be in the leadership of this revolt, with this phrase of Wilhelm Reich's as a motto: "That which is alive is in itself reasonable. It becomes a caricature when it is not allowed to live."

pets. We refuse to be discriminated against in job situations and in the Army and Navy. We refuse to be fired from government service as "security risks" and then have the New York Times refuse to print the details. We refuse to marry in order to disguise what we are, and we refuse to pretend any longer to enjoy a heterosexuality that is foreign to most of us. Life is too fast and mad today for us to accept old-fashioned socially-induced suffering. But accept it or not, we will force our way into open society and H: But that's the point. We've you will have to acknowledge us. finally rebelled against feeling From 4 to 7 million American this way because our human naadults-at least-are not going to ture can no longer stand it. Look be treated like criminals or freaks out for people whom you have because we are no longer going driven to such an extreme! We to accept your evaluation of us. refuse to live any longer as exotic Baby, remember my words!

SG: You make it sound like a holy crusade, when you really feel inside—from what faggots haye told me that you're miserable and almost unworthy to live.

McReynolds Replies to Krim

The Gay Underground-

"gay underground” is to fail to see gay society for what it is-a tragic sub-culture which is every bit as sick as the larger society in

Seymour Krim deserves credit for tackling the question of homosexuality in the March 18 issue of The Voice. With something like 10 per cent of the adult male population involved, homosexuality is due for some serious attention. However, Krim is off base in suggesting that queer brigades are about to storm the citadels of prudery, with Reichian slogans inscribed on their sequinned bamers. First, homosex uals as a group aren't going to lead any revolt because the last Channel of Rebellion thing they want is to get involved in any real struggle. They just Krim speaks of homosexuals want to be let alone to lead their coming out of hiding to demand precious lives in their presently and insist on their rights as a established dainty fashion. Secgroup. This is nonsense. The ond, in implying. some kind of homosexuals who are flaunting moral integrity and fervor to the themselves have no interest in

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which it exists.

mattachine REVIEW

getting social acceptance. What have taken up jazz, grow beards, Krim sees as a growing demand for recognition by society is nothing but the use of homosexuality as a channel of rebellion against society. Negroes and Puerto Ricans, for example, become homosexuals and are often proud of it because it represents a subculture which has few color or class lines-the common denominator is sex. In addition, the homosexual sub-culture has the atmosphere of glitter and a pretense to luxury which is difficult

or smoke pot; it represents a rebellion against the established order. I remember when I lived in Santa Monica that every weekend during the summer gangs of teen-age homosexuals would descend on the beach. And they did such a public job of being queer that one had to wonder if perhaps the laddies weren't protesting their homosexuality too much. I doubt very much that their "gayness" had any deep sexual roots. I think it was simply an exotic

to find in the drab and crowded' form of juvenile delinquency. streets of Harlem.

Or in the case of teen-agers, many have turned to homosexual-

Must Prove It

I'd like to suggest several fac-

ity in the same way that others tors that contribute to the in-

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