I have indulged in this digression with the aim of letting you see that existing laws are often neither rational nor deserving of respect solely because they are the law. In the past there existed laws to enforce certain codes of sexual morality which today seem to us grotesque and barbarous. I am convinced that if our civilisation is to become more decent, more sane and more wholesome than it is today there are existing laws - in particular certain State laws - which must be changed if we are to live in a state where all decent people can respect the law - instead of living a lie, in a society where the great mass of people only pay lip service to the law, but manage to exist by evading it.

I was brought up in a Christian family in which from early childhood I was taught that the Law would be my protector and not my persecutor. I was taught not only to respect it but to trust the Law. I would like to see a world in which the laws could once again be respected by every good and decent citizen; but when certain laws - and above all the perverse and unscrupulous enforcement of them - cause one to doubt the justice of the land at every turn, this becomes impossible. The worse thing that I have noticed in this respect is that certain persons, who lack an inward directed sense of what is right and wrong, grow up to discover that their irredeemable sexual impulses oblige them to become law-breakers - then such persons, from lack of any stable idealism that might keep them straight in other ways, say to themselves: “If in the eye of the law I would be considered a felon for sexual instincts that are humanly beyond my control, then why should I not break it in other ways? If ever it were to be known that I am a homosexual by nature then I would be cruelly punished; then why not be hung for a sheep instead of for a lamb?” So such young men, often in adolescence think: “Why not steal too, why not take dope if I can get narcotics? Is it not all the same thing? If people knew about me, I should be beyond the pale anyway!”.

Fortunately, in spite of the way the Law classifies them as felons, most homosexuals are really decent people - and keep a private code of ethics which prevents them from theft and fraud. But the Law does not encourage them to go straight - when the only maxim to which all their experience points, seems to be: “THOU SHALT NOT BE FOUND OUT”.