Calling

Shots

SENATOR CALLS FOR END OF PURITANISM

Senator William J. Fulbright touched a significant note recently when, after the assassination of President Kennedy and the murder of his accused assassin, he stated that America's great challenge today is to cast off the hatred bred by our Puritanical heritage.

He might have gone further and called for a renewal of practice of the teachings of love and understanding which came from Jesus Christ some 2000 years ago, distortions and interpretations of which let Puritanism develop in the first place.

Fulbright's message called for an end to intolerance, an application of the full meaning of freedom (implying that freedom was not something which said one is free to believe and behave in a manner approved by some group of self-styled authorities), and a diminishing emphasis on the violence which is now so played up on television and in mass media of information.

No area of human experience creates more social problems than the

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Puritanical repression of the sexual urge in Western culture. Without doubt this anti-sexualism forms a root cause for far more personality disorders and social ills in individuals than we know. And be cause we are loath to face this root cause, we indulge in wasted lives and wasted efforts time and again treating surface symptoms.

An example in point: Pressure is now mounting to amend the constitution and provide law forbidding American citizens the right to possess arms. Argument is advanced that the "dangerous frontier" days of 188 years ago are now past. The arms are dangerous in the hands of such twisted and psychopathic persons as Lee Harvey Oswald, therefore arms should be denied to all. Here again we treat a symptom, hoping to cure the disease. But it won't, other experts point out, because the law-abiding citizens in whose hands arms pose no threat will be denied arms for use in sports and in some cases food gathering, while the dangerous potential killers among us will get the pistols and rifles they want anyway.

Wouldn't it be better to teach love and respect of one's fellow man, to emphasize that thinking people may hold divergent views and still be honored, even though we may disapprove these views, and to realize that dissent and non-conformity are the basic strengths of advancing our knowledge and way of life?

(Continued on page 20)

mattachine REVIEW

Editor HAROLD L. CALL

Associate Editor LEWIS C. CHRISTIE

Business Manager DONALD S. LUCAS

Treasurer

O. CONRAD BOWMAN, JR.

Editorial Board

ROLLAND HOWARD WALLACE DE ORTEGA MAXEY

mattachine. REVIEW

Founded in 1954-– First Issue January 1955

Volume IX

DECEMBER 1963 Number 12

TABLE OF CONTENTS

2 CALLING SHOTS

4 SOME OF THE PEOPLE, ALL OF THE TIME..., by Bernard Levin

9 "I WANT TO CHANGE MY SEX" by Harry Benjamin, M.D.

13 GIRLS ARE HOW YOU FIND THEM, fiction by Curt Stephen Curtiss

16 LITERARY SCENE

21 BOOKS IN REVIEW

23 NORWEGIAN MAGAZINE ABHORS AMERICAN POSTOFFICE DEPARTMENT CENSORSHIP

Cover by BETTY MESSERSMITH

Trudemark Registered U.S. Patent Office Published monthly by the Mattachine Society, Inc., 693 Mission Street, San Francisco 5, California. Telephone: Douglas 2-3799 Copyright 1963 by the Mattachine Society, Inc. Ninth year of publication; Mattachine Foundation, Inc., established in 1950 at Los An• geles; Mattachine Society formed in 1953 and chartered as non-profit, non-partisan, educational, research, and SPECIAL NOTICE TO ALL SUBSCRIBERS social service corporation in New Postal Regulations and rising costs make it im California. Founded in theperative that you MUST notify the Mattachine REVIEW' public interest for the purpose of providing accurate information and informed opinion leading to solution of sex bebavior problems, particu larly those of the homosex. ual adult.

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