To the editor:
In a time when the American public likes to think of itself as sympathetic toward minority groups who have long been suppressed (e.g.: some of my best friends are Indians and blacks), one minority group stands out as still having extreme prejudice displayed against them. That minority is the homosexual.
The average American views the homosexual as a horrible social deviant who is as likely to rape their six-year-old son as he is to walk across the street. It is an extreme injustice of the American people perpetrated upon such a person just because he prefers intimate relationships with someone of his own sex. He is probably no more apt to rape your son that is any heterosexual to rape your daughter. All homosexuals are seen as deviants while all heterosexuals are not. This is obviously a great wrong.
This last week, Boys in the Band (perverted trash?), was put on in Curtiss Auditorium. It was a play that dealt with homosexuality. The viewing public may have thought it showed the homosexual as being suicidal (although only one out of eight showed the slightest inclination towards such), or a person who visits psychiatrists (here it was two out of eight). Although studies show, and if I'm wrong I'm sure that a greater percentage of homosexuals commit suicide and visit psychiatrists than do heterosexuals, that is not what the play is about. Says Mart Crowley, who by the way is the playwright, "Those who think that this play is about homosexuality are all wet. It's about man's ability to self-destruct and that man is his own worst enemy."
I now ask those who wrote the letter if they saw the play. It's a play that deals with nine individuals who have feelings of love and hate just like any other people on the face of this earth. A crisis is forced upon them and they react, just like any human being might react. Whether or not they are homosexual makes no difference, that they are people makes all the difference in the world. As an indication of your coming out, you might sign your names to future letters.
E.J. Evans
English and History
[If you did not arrive at this page via the newspaper image of this article, it is available here: Boys in the Band: Letters to the Editor Regarding the Gay Liberation Front]