SIR,—The three correspondents whose replies you have published show very
clearly the public opinion, which 1 venture to think your contributor knew, but all three have missed the opportunity of replying to the important suggestion in his penultimate paragraph. He wishes to delete the words or in private' from Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1885; and secondly, he wishes to extend to young boys the protection 'given to young girls in heterosexual practices.'
The second point is not likely to arouse dis- pleasure; it is humane and reasonable. But the other has been so often proposed and defended that it surely deserves an attacking criticism.
Without those provisions, the law would amount to this: 'Homosexual practices in public are scandalous and cannot be per- mitted, but between parties in private they are permissible.' But this is hardly what the law intends. By analogy, prostitution should be quite lawful provided it does not happen in a public place. The law desires to prevent the act, not to confine it within doors.
Suppose, nevertheless, that the law stood so, at least in respect of consenting parties of full age (this is a combination of several of your contributors' arguments). Here at once is the encumbered question of consent. Every- body knows that consent may be gradual, moving frbm initial reluctance to ultimate passion; everybody knows, too, that consent may be induced. It is impossible to imagine that it will never be pleaded where it did not in fact exist at the time of the first offence.
Thirdly, this alteration is to be made in favour only of biological homosexuals (again Your contributor's proposal; others are less restrained). But surely the nature of the change is incompatible with such a restriction being effective. If it is permitted at all, the habit is liable and likely to be spread by those to whom it is permitted. But the law has set its face against the practice, and a portion against the spreading of it. Unless the moral temper of the country were to change so far that we did not disapprove of homosexuality at all, the law could not without extreme dan- ger to the community make such a concession, with unenforceable safeguards.
Since your contributor 'demands not sym- pathy . . . but justice,' I respectfully suggest that, in the circumstances of our society, he has it. Justice is not necessarily convenient or pleasant, and I offer him sympathy to temper it.—Yours faithfully,
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