nverted
physician, of high character and successful in his profession,
writes to me on this point: "The first, and easiest, thing to do,
it seems to me, is to convince the medical profession that we
unfortunate people are not only as sane, but as moral, as our
normal brothers; and that we are even more alive to the supreme
necessity of self-control (necessary from every point of view)
than they. It is not license we want, but justice; it is the
cruelty and prejudice of convention which we wish to abolish--not
the proper and just indignation of society with crimes against
the social order. We want to make it possible for us to satisfy
our inborn instincts (which are not concerned essentially with
sexual acts, so called, alone) without thereby becoming
criminals. One of us who would, under any circumstances, seduce a
person of his own sex of immature age, and particularly one whose
sexual complexion was unknown, deserves the severe punishment
which would be meted out to a normal person who did the same to a
young girl--_but no more_; while, so long as no public offense is
given, there should be _no penalty or obloquy whatever_ attached
to sexual acts committed with full consent between mature
persons. These acts may or may not be wrong and immoral, just as
sexual acts between mature persons of different sexes may or may
not be wrong or immoral. But in neither case has the law any
concern; and public opinion should make no distinction between
the two. It is in the highest degree important that it should be
clearly understood that we want no relaxation of moral
obligations. At present we suffer an inconceivably cruel wrong."

We have always to remember, and there is, indeed, no possibility of
forgetting, that the question of homosexuality is a social question.
Within certain limits, the gratification of the normal sexual impulse,
even outside marriage, arouses no general or profound indignation; and is
regarded as a private matter; rightly or wrongly, the gratification of the
homosexual impulse is regarded as a public matter. This attitude is more
or less exactly reflected in the law. Thus it happens that whenever a man
is openly detected in a homosexual act, however exemplary his life may
previously have been, however admirable it may still be in all other
relations, every ordinary normal citizen, however licentious and