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That is the crux: most homosexuals apparently do not desire a cure. A generation ago, the view that homosexuality should be treated not as a vice but as a disease was considered progressive. Today in many quarters it is considered reactionary. Homophile opinion rejects the notion that homosexuals are sick, and argues that they simply have different tastes. Kinsey had a lot to do with this, for to him all sexual pleasure was equally valid. "The only unnatural sex act," he said, "is that which you cannot perform." His coauthor, Wardell Pomeroy, also argues that homosexuality should be accepted as a fact of human existence, and claims to have known many happy, well-adjusted homosexual couples.
Such views are enthusiastically taken up by several so-called homophile groups, a relatively new phenomenon. Best known of these deviate lobbies is the Mattachine Society, which takes its name from the court jesters of the Middle Ages, who uttered social criticism from behind masks. In recent years, the Mattachines have been increasingly discarding their masks; the Washington branch has even put picket lines outside the White House to protest exclusion of known homosexuals from the civil service and the armed forces, has lately protested exclusion from the Poverty Program. Borrowing a device from the civil rights movement, homophiles have even issued lapel buttons bearing a small equality sign ( = ) on a lavender background.
Quite apart from the homophile organizations, there is widespread agitation by various groups, including the Civil Liberties Union, for the repeal of laws that in 48 states make various homosexual acts punishable by prison terms ranging from six months to life. The model invariably cited is Britain's 1957 Wolfenden Report—not yet accepted by Parliament—which proposes that homosexual relations between consenting adults should not be illegal. In the U.S., only Illinois has so far adopted this principle. Police, however, claim that many people, including judges, already act as if the Wolfenden rule were the law across the U.S.
The Moral Issue
The most telling argument for the Wolfenden rule is that the present statutes are unenforceable anyway as long as the homosexual acts are performed in private (many of the laws also prohibit the same acts between man and wife). In effect, the arrests that are now made are for public or semipublic acts, including "soliciting," with homosexuals often trapped by plainclothesmen posing as deviates. There is also a constant opportunity for blackmail and for shakedowns by real or phony cops, a practice known as "gayola." Advocates of the Wolfenden position argue further that persecution by society only renders the neurotic homosexual more neurotic. A Church of England committee declared that the function of the law is to "protect young people from seduction or assault, and to protect society from nuisances," but not to be the guardian of private morality.