10 JUNE 1960, Page 13

HOMOSEXUAL PROSECUTIONS

SIR,--Your homosexual correspondents should not suppose that all who fail to rally to their cause are constrained by 'irrational prejudice.' There are practical considerations. The demand for the imple- mentation of the Wolfenden recommendations is not pursued solely for the benefit of those men who wish to establish conjugal fidelity. Homosexual practices are, and will continue to be, largely promiscuous. The Wolfenden Report proposed the exclusion from the criminal law not only of homosexual acts but of homosexual soliciting (except, of course, in public). Once the desired legislation has been achieved, clubs in which men solicit men will be accepted as legitimate, even respectable. Only those clubs which encourage or facilitate heterosexual promiscuity will continue to be denounced as 'dens of vice.'

There was a reasonable case for implementing the Wolfenden recommendations in logo. There is no case at all for applying Wolfenden-liberalism to homosexuals while imposing Sunday-Pictorial- puritanism on the rest of the community. Although Mr. Butler introduced the Street Offences Bill (now Act) as 'following exactly the recommendations of the Wolfenden Report,' it is clear that *,e, and most of the press, intended it only as the thin edge of the wedge. The further the law advances beyond the Wolfenden (Part III)`-line, the more does Part II appear as a plea not for justice but for privilege.— Yours faithfully,