HOMOSEXUALS AND THE LAW SIR, — The upshot of the trial at
Winchester Assizes has left the public with an unconr fortable feeling of perplexity.
Considering ourselves in duty bound tO accept the jury's verdict (however divergent it may be from one's own private conclusions) we are confronted by the fact of the finest legal system in the world and a judge who was obviously both just and humane impelled to a 'conclusion about whose justice, by any absolute standards, none of us can feel happYs The progress of ideas has fortunately robbed the purely social sanctions prevailing half a century ago of much. of their asperity, but, nevertheless, three useful and promising careers have been permanently impaired. Still maintaining the necessary postulate of guilt, one's feeling of malaise is deepened by the knowledge that if the law functioned in the same way for those of us who have the luck to be born free of illegal tendencies, hundredS of thousands of us would be long ago ci.thind bars. Collective guilt is further increased bY the certainty that, •though the men now JO prison corrupted nobody and did no con° ceivable harm to society, the rest of us are free, as long as we keep clear of rape and minors, to break up homes and scatter domes' tic destruction with godlike immunity.
The second troubling thought is anxiety for the police. It seems a hard lot that the duties of this justly world-famous force should lead them to endanger their great name IV recourse to arbitrary methods which are 14 flat contradiction to the spirit of the country, It cannot, surely, be denied that their pl cstigo has suffered in the recent case. If the laW were reformed, how many young polic.nnen, now forced to play the humiliating role of agent provocateur would be released for the extirpation of real crime--the coshin !, and robbing of the aged, or the corruption (whether by heterosexuals or homosexuals) of minors. This analysis of today's uncomfortable cofl. science in this matter is brief and made mate/ But the feeling is undeniably there and think it is widespread. Laws are the sub' conscious expression of a country and it IS precisely these collective twinges of guilt and perplexity that eventually create the mood for a reformer to uproot the causes. Inver. sion can never be abolished; harsh laws can. There are three prerequisites to most reform5! the maturing of public opinion, a sort of tribal guilty conscience and a courageoui legislator. Judging by newspaper corresporP dence of the last months, the first two condi4 tions are here already. Perhaps the third-4 a spokesman with enough pluck and unsel• fishness to complete the trio—will soon appear. There are hopeful signs.--Your
Club, Pall Mall, S.W.I"
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