Organized as a revival of the Mattachine which was founded originally in Los Angeles, the present Los Angeles Mattachine Society, Inc., began in February 1963 at the heat of a Hollywood newspaper campaign against the “sex deviate." Led by W. E. Mohler, Jr., of the Frank Wood law firm, this new organization has for the most part remained a committee-type operation, although it is now expanding into one involving membership participation. Its chairman is admittedly outspoken and strongly oriented to political and legal action as a means to accomplish a prerequisite for change: Revision of the California Penal Code. This revision, he holds must be along lines recommended by the Model Penal Code of the American Law Institute and by others as well. That is, in addition to granting freedom for consenting sex acts between adults in private, it must also forbid indiscriminate application of vague charges by police for many if not most of the so-called offenses under the present "disorderly conduct" statute. These "catch-all" categories, not expressly outlawed in the Model Penal Code, still offer opportunity for police entrapment and penalize solicitation, no matter if the act solicited is legal. They also offer the legislators temptation to re-establish as criminal acts which the Penal Code might intentionally omit as such, this temptation being something which might result from some infrequent or isolated "outrage" which, while bad in itself, should not be "corrected" by the passage of new bad laws like those now on the books. In cooperation with others of goodwill who are seeking legal change, Mr. Mohler has helped to establish a "legal trust fund" at à bank for the express purpose of aiding the complete revamp of California's Penal Code.
Los Angeles Mattachine has effectively employed public relations procedures in Southern California which have reached deeply into the legal, political, law enforcement and public health areas in the community. This has done much to create a better climate of understanding and acceptance of the homophile movement among persons of influence, thus far than others in the movement have been either unable or not inclined to undertake this vital step. Therefore, LAMS (and its adherents are neither little sheep nor somemattachine REVIEW
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thing masquerading in sheep's clothing) has brought a new aspect to the movement, not only to Southern California, but to the rest of the state as well, especially since Mr. Mohler is the first registered legislative advocate ever to serve any of the organizations.
Daughters of Bilitis is today the single homophile organization which operates more than one branch office, From its headquarters in San Francisco, chapters in Chicago and New York are chartered, and until recently one was located in Los Angeles. Its national magazine is The Ladder (founded in October 1956). Its chapters issue monthly newsletters to promote volunteer work sessions, attendance at their regular forums, "gab-n-Java" klatches, and business meetings. Concerned almost exclusively with the problem of the adult lesbian, DOB is somewhat clannish, but it does cross over into the male world in a few instances:
1. It sponsors an annual "St. Patrick's Day" brunch for its masculine friends at San Francisco;
2. It issues "honorary citations" called "SOB's" to those men it regards as having performed outstanding service to the the all-female organization, which "Sons of Bilitis" cards seem highly prized and always draw a chuckle, and
3. The New York Chapter, at least, is officially affiliated with the ECHO Conference in which the three other organizations are predominantly but not exclusively male (the Mattachine Societies of New York and Washington and the Janus Society of Philadelphia).
The exclusively female membership of DOB, however, is 'not an implication of non-cooperation or lack of interest in the total homophile movement. Rather it is simply an indication that it recognizes that lesbians face a set of attitudes different (and sometimes not so harsh) as their male coupterparts; that their social life and home situations sometimes vary greatly from those of the male, and so on. A final, but relatively unimportant part of the separateness is due to the fact that many lesbian women are uncomfortable in a mixture of males, since in many respects the male viewpoint is permitted to outweigh concerns of women, because we still officially have a patrist society. For instance, DOB still resents with justification a tendency for some to 17