Behavior: A Discussion: Are Homosexuals Sick?

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Socarides: I guess some of you feel that obligatory homosexuality is not an illness, that homosexuality should be proposed as a normal form of sexuality to all individuals. I think that this would be a disaster. A little boy might go next door to the Y and an older man might say to him, "Look, this is normal, my son. Just join me in this." If you sell this bill of goods to the nation, you are doing irreparable harm, and there will be a tremendous backlash against the homosexual.

Fox: I went through the English school system, which everybody knows is a homosexual system in the very fullest sense. Speaking as an obligatory heterosexual on behalf of myself and the other 90%, we went through it, we enjoyed it, we came out the other end, and we are fine. Some people have strayed about somewhere in the middle. This notion, therefore, that if you catch somebody and tell him that homosexuality is normal and practice it with him, he is necessarily going to get stuck in it, is absolutely nonsense. And I cite my three daughters as evidence.

Socarides: The only place to get the material that will tell us the truth about what the homosexual suffers is in-depth analysis. Sociologists, anthropologists, even psychologists do not tell us what is going on in the basic psyche of the homosexual. I believe we should change the laws. I believe that homosexuals have been persecuted. The homosexual must be seen as a full-fledged citizen in a free society and must be given all the rights and prerogatives that all other citizens enjoy, neither more nor less. I think, however, that we must do one other thing. It must be declared that homosexuality is a form of emotional illness, which can be treated, that these people can be helped.

Kameny: With that, you will surely destroy us.