Elizabeth, Charles the II, Florence Nightingale and Edward Fitzgerald. The only real difference between Germany and the rest of Europe seems to be that thero have been more persons in crucial governmental positions there at orucial turningpoints of history than in the rest of them.
In the session devoted to religious doctrines the history of Jewish and Christian sexual attitudes was gone into. Among other things, it was pointed out that Christianity has always had several different attitudes towards sexual mores and that it was not until shortly before, or at the beginning of, the Christian era that Jewish religious leaders began to declare that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was homosexuality and not pride, as their earlier ones had done.
At the final session the various types of homosexual organizations were described. An interesting and provocative point was made that the European organizations have an entirely different approach from the main American ones. Their magazines are sold only to subscribers and never on newsstands, There is little or no attempt made to interest the public and even less to contact psychiatrists, doctors, law enforcement officers, eto. In most European countries there is less to fear, and yet the homosexual seems to be more afraid than here, and has a tendency to withdraw from society into his own little private circles. As was
said by the speaker, we actually have far more to hope for and our outlook for the future is far more encouraging in this country.
The whole Symposium was a remarkable experience and those who attended came away with great respect for the monumental labors that had gone into the assembling and compiling of the material presented. It was truly a Herculean task to do so, and a task which deserves the highest praise of all acquainted with it. As yet a textbook summarizing the material presented has not been published, but when this is accomplished, a great contribution will have been made to the homophile world. While most of the books and articles from which this material was drawn are available to the general reader, it is unfortunately true
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