How dare any person, or group of persons, have the unmitigated gall to set themselves up as an authority between God and man? I have but one authority: God. The church that seeks to usurp that authority only injures my life. Nevertheless, a church, properly constituted, and its organized religion, can be a tremendous aid in my life. To do so the church must make itself a fellowship to give acceptance, support, and guidance where needed and when asked for in my life. A real church is a group of kindred spirits met for the common purpose of growing toward God, or, in other words, for achieving the abundant, whole life. A real church, then, need not have a building or a minister or a budget or a constitution. But it must have the pull and challenge of naturual growth toward life fulfillment. (I suspect in many senses that Mattachine is a real church to some of its members.)

So it is all very understandable that so many homosexuals reject the churches and their organized religions. They should reject any person or group of per sons who presumptiously take over God's prerogatives and seek to judge their lives. (This is not to say that society doesn't have the right to set limits and to make laws and judgments. It does have the right whether wisely used or not.) If there is any ultimate judging, only God can do it. Therefore the religion of the spirit insists that each person's religion will be different with there being no two exactly alike. There is, therefore, no such thing as a heresy or heretic. As long as one's religion is sincere and is growing, it is valid.

Such a church as this, propounding a religion of the spirit, would welcome homosexuals, and homosexuals, if they understood their need as human be ings, would welcome the opportunity to be part of such a church. A tumbler is a useless ornament until it is filled with water. Then it is fulfilling its purpose. So, too, with our lives. They are useless omaments until they find their fulfillment. This is the business of religion-it is an organized, structured attempt to fulfill life.

The homosexual needs this as all people need it. But I have yet to hear of the church that will thus accept the homosexual. Of course I know of some sickening examples of churches which say that they accept them as sinners who need help and regeneration. Such condescension as this Jesus effectively condemned in his parable of the pharisee and the publican.

Nevertheless, the homosexual who wants to make his life, not a bitter rebuttal of society's errors, but a positive witness and demonstration of truth and goodness and happiness, needs the best church he can find. It can, even in its shortcomings and errors, be an aid. Homosexuals do well then to search out a free church, one which makes no required doctrinal assent or ritualistic performance. And it should be a church which teaches a positive, affirmative way of life.

16

mattachine REVIEW

CAN THE HOMOSEXUAL LOVE AFFAIR LAST?

By William Raeder

Many men go into homosexual affairs seeking much the same relationship of personal stability and companionship that they might find with a woman. Once having had them they return to their original heterosexuality because of the repeated charge that homosexuals are shallow, promiscuous, insecure and too sex-bound to have the necessary personal attributes for a lasting liaison.

Many homosexuals who recognize themselves as intelligent, sensitive, hard-working, serious-minded, loyal in their personal relationships and cir cumspect in sexual matters will wince at the charge.

It goes without saying that on a personal level every combination of both extremes will be found. But generally it is agreed that homosexual lovers endure for short periods of time and the change of partners is the order of the day. (Kinsey, et.al.)

If the ultimate aim of a lasting socio-sexual relationship is a desirable goal to aim for, the question presents itself-can the homosexual attain it in the mass?

BY THE VERY NATURE OF THE HOMOSEXUAL RELATIONSHIP-HE CANNOT.

Any such relationship, to be stable and endure must be based on many factors, such as (1) The Suasion of Law, (2) the Sanctions of Orthodox Morality, (3) An Adult Personality, (4) the Urge to Procreate, and (5) the Harmony of the Opposite Sex in Marriage.

A cursory treatment of a few of these questions might take each of the opposed positions:

AGAINST: (1) THE SUASION OF LAW:

Love and virtue are qualities of the individual that to be fully realized must have community identity within the established confines of legality. Where the law rules against a mode of such love it stifles it in the individual. Technically, homosexual relations are illegal and an individual attempting to live such a life is necessarily restrained. The emotional instability that, follows is a natural consequence.

FOR:

It is due to the suasion of law that he is helped to become insecure as he seeks security. But it must be seen that law has become more lenient in the past and is continuing to do so. There is sucir a thing as a changing legal 17