Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR INDIANS Anthony Netboy's "Death of an Indian Forest" [NL, January 14] tells of the impending liquidation of the Klamath Indians' reservation in Oregon, with a nest egg of $40,000 per...
...Far more important than the above is Cant's astonishing statement that "homosexuals are openly seeking to make converts to their abnormal pattern of life.'' This is indeed news to all of us in the Mattachine Society, an organization that does its best to keep up with all matters pertaining to homosexuality and homosexuals, whether the Society approves of them or not...
...Why not move them out now, willy-nilly, and move all the unprepared people in Chicago, Denver, San Francisco and Los Angeles into their thus emptied "850,000 timber-rich acres...
...I am concerned not with a specific organization but with an attitude of mind...
...The name Donald Webster Cory also appears on two other works: 21 Variations and Homosexuality: A CrosS'Cultural Approach...
...Regardless of genesis, however, Cant was on shaky semantic ground when he referred to The New Leader welcomes comment and criticism on any of its features, but letters should not exceed 300 words...
...This is a meaningless term, regardless of where it is applied: Anything that happens is natural, for it is in the nature of things for it to happen...
...Cory's contribution was only editorial...
...As for Stanley M. Arndt's defense of the American Legion, which also appeared in the January 28 issue, he takes me too literally...
...I myself—in my own dealings with several hundred homosexuals as well as with organizations like the Mattachine, One, the International Committee for Sexual Equality, Arcadie, etc.—have never seen an instance of proselytizing, or even heard of it...
...All too often the leadership of the Legion and of its individual posts has gone on record in opposition to the rights of unpopular minorities...
...As a matter of fact, many psychologists are of the opinion that no one is born a heterosexual either, but that individuals are originally endowed only with what we might call "blind" sexuality and later events, which apparently take place largely during very early childhood, determine the eventual direction of the sexual impulse...
...This would make plenty of room available in those cities for the displaced Government bureaucrats of the Indian Bureau and all the Hungarian and Chinese refugees...
...Their reasonableness does not alter the fact that other, less reasonable homosexuals are now embarked on a campaign to win approval and even special privilege for their deviant cult...
...Specifically, it is not held by Cory...
...To speak of this as a "seductive'' opus in an "obscene propaganda drive'7 is almost comical...
...As far as the genesis of homosexuality is concerned, it is probably true that no one is born a homosexual...
...New York City Name Withheld Mr...
...He quotes one of their leaders as saying: "Our people are less prepared to manage their own affairs today than 40 years ago...
...DEAR EDITOR INDIANS Anthony Netboy's "Death of an Indian Forest" [NL, January 14] tells of the impending liquidation of the Klamath Indians' reservation in Oregon, with a nest egg of $40,000 per capita, and their exile to Chicago, Denver, San Francisco or Los Angeles...
...homosexuality as "not natural...
...they need more time...
...I do not know just what Cant means when he writes of Cory's hiding "behind his wife's skirts," unless it is just a gratuitous insult...
...The writers of these letters are reasonable men who have made a satisfactory working adjustment to the society in which they live as members of a minority...
...Nor has he written "whole books" on the subject of homosexuality—only one, The Homosexual in America...
...Until a thorough scientific study is made, it would be best not to perpetuate by implication what may very well be a myth: that homosexuals lack the attributes of virility...
...If he does know of such a case, we would appreciate hearing further details...
...Some homosexuals—like some heterosexuals— do believe that they are "the repository of most of the world's artistic talent," but this ridiculous and patently false idea is not shared by any reasonably well-educated, thinking homosexual I have ever known...
...in the January 7 issue of The New Leader has been brought to the attention of several members of the Mattachine Society, and we feel that some of the points made there should be discussed further...
...This thoughtful, unsensational work has been given the highest praise by homo- and heterosexuals alike, and remains the only book where one can learn precisely what it means to be homosexual...
...Cant replies: The letter from "A Friend" in the January 28 issue and the above letter from the Mat-tachine Society merely show that there are homosexuals and homosexuals—which nobody in his right mind had ever doubted...
...Also, Cory is not "Madison Avenue," either geographically or as the term is currently used...
...New York City Alfred Kohlberg HOMOSEXUALITY Gilbert Cant's review of Dr...
...One who is not, and never was, engaged in winning converts for the "homosexual way of life," not even from among the "borderline'' cases, is my very good friend Donald Webster Cory...
...Here is a nice problem for Dirk J. Struik, the wizard who reduced Marxism to a mathematical formula...
...To begin with, I object to his placing the word "male" in quotation marks when referring to homosexuals...
...These, however, are anthologies of short stories and non-fiction articles, respectively, in which Mr...
...Nothing that the reasonable writers have said can alter my opposition to the campaign of their less reasonable co-deviationists...
...If they are less prepared now than 40 years ago, by what year will they be fully prepared...
...Any organization must accept the consequences of its acts, and suffer (or enjoy) the reputation that it gets as a result of them...
...Cant may have been misled because homosexuals often do speak of those who, from the days of ancient Greece to 1957, have contributed so much to our civilization, either to point out that homosexuality need not be a bar to achievement or just to show the influence of a person's sexuality upon his work...
...I will not deny that some crackpot homosexual might try such a ridiculous and obviously useless sort of thing, but I assume that Cant was not referring to crackpots...
...Of course, "maleness" might be defined exclusively in terms of sexual preference, but this would lead to rather ludicrous conclusions in many, many instances—Chopin and Alexander the Great, to take just two obvious historical examples...
...I personally have not been able to find any significant correlation, among my friends on both sides of the fence, between their sexual preferences and their other personality traits, such as aggressiveness...
...Edmund Bergler's Homosexuality: Disease or Way of Life...
Vol. 40 • February 1957 • No. 6
