Adult Responsibility

In a Boise courtroom last week, five more men were sentenced to prison in the city's shocking homosexual scandal (TIME. Dec. 12) in which scores of boys were involved as victims. Joe Moore, vice president of the Idaho First National Bank and a leading citizen, got seven years, and four others drew terms ranging from six months to ten years.

Dr. John L. Butler, chief of Idaho's Department of Mental Health, had publicly opposed sentencing the homosexual adults to prison terms: "We have to build up community supports for them," he said. "One alternative might be to let them form their own society and be left alone." Judge Merlin S. Young disagreed. In sentencing one of the men, the judge said: "As an adult, you have an obligation to the youth of the community."