the Lesbian to understand herself.
How can such a program threaten the public? The DOB and similar organizations might conceivably stimulate public thinking and discussion as to what it s moral views actually are with regard to various aspects of sex. Free dis cussion of any issue, including this one, with the presentation of all sides of the question, should be a contribution, not a threat, to the public good.
CHILD MOLESTERS?
rule "no
-
DOB is an organizati on of adult women. The minors allowed" is strictly adhered to. adhered to. It has already been stated that many of our members have a homosexual orientation and by token of their sexual preference, which does not conform to the pattern of the majority, may be called sex deviates. The sex deviate is anyone varying in any manner from the legal method of sexual gratification and by such definition would even include many socially accepted married couple.. At the New York convention of the Mattachine Society in 1958, Dr. Theodore Weiss, senior psychiatrist at Bellevue Hospital, stated that only a small percentage of sexual deviates are child molesters and the re is "no evidence to show that this crime is perpetrated more by homosexuals than heterosexuals".
REVISION OF SEX LAWS?
The law in relation to the homosexual must necessarily be a part of any study of homosexuality. DOB's cons orn with laws can be best expressed by the following excerpt from an "Open Letter to Assemblyman John A. O'Connell", chairman of the California Assembly Interim Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, which appeared in THE LADDER for September, 1958:
It is generally conceded by the experts in the field that the cause of homosexuality is still an unknown quantity, that it is a process of development and not a matter of choice, that the incidence cannot be controlled by legislation, that tho fear and insecurity imposed upon the homosexual by prejudiced and outmoded laws hamper the the rapist in his efforts to help the individual make his
16