Transvestia

non-conformity and in fact they are a long way apart. However a society that is ingrown and stratified in one way is of necessity intolerant and non-permissive in lots of other ways since strict rules of conformity in many areas of life are necessary to survival of such a conformist society. So that when circumstances dev- elop wherein past patterns of conformity, repression, intolerance and disdain for one group are brought into question and gradually destroyed, the social "smog" that blinds society to one kind of injustice begins to clear away and a clearer atmosphere of tolerance and freedom for many other minorities comes to pass at the same time.

There is another current social development that bears watching too and that is in the field of religion. This country is the inheritor of a Judeo-Christian set of ethics interpreted in the past largely by two very conservative forces...the Catholic church and the more fundementalist Protestant sects such as the Baptists. The religious ethics were incorporated into the legal codes of the state so that what was morally "bad" in the eyes of the church became legally "wrong" in the eyes of the state. This condition remained an inte- gral part of American culture from the beginning in spite of consitutional clauses about separation of church and state. As institutions they were separate, as policies they were almost one and the same.

So what is happening now? Most recent, most inter- esting and perhaps most heartening is the series of re- interpretations and restatements of doctrine by the Catholic Church. Everything from saying mass in Eng- lish, not having to go without meat on Friday, lifting the blanket condemnation of the Jewish race, and now "discussing" birth control, etc. None of these have any direct connection to our main interest but they are another sign of the times, of breaking down of some of the religiously imposed barriers and ethics. Meantime in the Protestant world a lot of clergymen finally woke up at the time of Selma and found that the world existed outside of their pulpits. They went, they saw, they participated, and they came back

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