thing that is a personal matter, and yet society as a whole is still operating on a business of running other people's business all too much. Now, we happen to be living in a wonderful democracy that is just the antithesis of the dictatorship which minds your business for you and tells you what to do. And yet, unfortunately, that being a sort of old heritage from the past, is still pretty much a habit with us, even though we pride ourselves on a democracy which is based on the idea that we should develop ourselves and our talents and learn to get along with one another. So, this problem of homosexuality is a deep problem of shall we accept our neighbors and their reactions, or shall we try to tell them what to do with their lives.

MODERATOR: Yes, but Dr. Baker, surely from the standpoint of society, and far be it from me to be that delegate particularly, society has always assumed that right to have something to do with heterosexual relationships in terms of marriage, divorce and property rights, etc. You are not suggesting that the homosexual has automatically stepped out of the context where society has any call upon him in any way?

DR. BAKER: Not at all.

MODERATOR: But it is a perfectly possible position. Some people do resent the supervision of society in their personal lives, even if their habits are heterosexual. It is a basic thing,-society does play a role in this. The extent to which society would play the role, surely, is open to a lot of controversy I would think.

DR. BAKER: We are coming in to a period where there seems to be more enlightenment, more awareness of the individual's needs to express himself as long as he doesn't bring sorrow or harm to other people. And I wonder, Hal, if you could give anything about the Wolfenden report, and the signs of the times of more enlightenment coming in, more appreciation of the individual's rights as long as they can fit into our social patterns without harm.

MR. CALL: In England, last September, a committee headed by Sir John Wolfenden submitted a report which recommended that consenting homosexual acts between males, because incidentally, in England there is no law against such acts between females,—it has been recommended that consenting acts between adults over 21 no longer be a matter of concern to the law, that it no longer be considered a crime, providing the acts take place in private and do not involve minors, and do not involve any kind of force or violence or fraud. Now, that also is essentially the program of our own Mattachine organization. We tell everyone that he, or she, must respect the laws we have in this country and we advocate that no one should disobey these laws. However we do call for an educational program to be conducted until the attitudes are changed so that our laws may be changed in all of our 48 states, we hope, 26

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along these lines. Incidentally we are not the first nor the only organization in this country doing that work. In April, 1955 the American Law Institute in its Tentative Draft No. 4, which covered sexual offenses, recommended essentially the same things. Many retired jurists and people well versed in law and its enforcement in this country sat in on the making of those recommendations. Judge Learned Hand, of New York, was one of the outstanding individuals who helped push that particular thesis, or stand, through. The Wolfenden committee, or its report at least, is not yet law in England, -it is only a recommendation. I've heard many individuals tell me that already the laws have been changed in England,-well, that is not true at this date. In some countries, however, in Europe, the laws have been changed. In Denmark, I believe, the change was made in 1933 so that homosexual acts are not illegal. Now, the stigma against homosexuality, as imposed by the entire culture, still remains. There are other countries in Europe where laws may be found on the books to make such acts illegal, but there is not an inclination in those countries to enforce them, providing again, that the acts are conducted in private and between adults and no force or violence or fraud is involved.

MODERATOR: Which countries are those?

MR. CALL: Well, Switzerland is one, I would say; probably the three Bene lux countries; in Norway and Sweden the attitude is pretty general. I believe Norway has had a change in law, I'm not quite sure, but I understand that in the early 1950's, just a few years ago, they did make a change in law. That attitude is generally prevalent in France, and in most of the Latin countries. However in some countries, as in Germany today, and in Austria particularly, the persecution of the homosexual is particularly severe. MODERATOR: Does this apply in Western Germany as well as in Eastern Germany?

MR. CALL: Our knowledge is of West Germany, and frankly, Germany had gone a long way toward a change in attitude, but it has been reported to us that part of this drifting back into the more mediaeval era is the result of our own American occupation.

MODERATOR: And in the Russian dominated parts of Europe in general,what is the attitude on the subject?

MR. CALL: There are laws against it, as far as we know, in all of those countries, in all of the area under the Soviets, but we have no direct contact nor any worthwhile information from that area, so I couldn't report on that. MODERATOR: And in this country, you say there are some recommendations which are going forward. Are they being handled by the states?

MR. CALL: Sex crimes are a matter of state jurisdiction. We have 48 different sets of laws involving sex acts in this country. In one state a certain