EDITORIAL

The Editors consider this issue of ONE the most important in their four years of publishing. In these pages, the public is given for the first time the "inside story" of ONE's two-and-one-half year contest with the United States Post Office. We hope that you will read this story thoroughly, because no matter how you think or feel about homosexuality, this story involves YOU as an American citizen, and your rights under the First Amendment to the Constitution,

The First Amendment says: "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press....

ONE can be, in a way, almost grateful to the Los Angeles Postmaster for throwing open the issue of its publishing rights under the First Amendment. Events may prove that in no other way could the rights of homosexual American citizens be adequately and finally tested, and the legal and social problems of the homosexual be thoroughly and publicly aired.

ONE plans to appeal to the United States Supreme Court for a reversal of a decision against it by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals a decision which upheld the opinion of the Federal District Court and, earlier, of the Los Angeles Postmaster that the October, 1954 issue of ONE Magazine was "filthy and obscene," and therefore non-mailable.

Opinions of distinguished jurists in recent years strongly support the propriety of describing life realistically in fiction and other literary forms, including those references to the erotic which are consistent with the characters portrayed, and which truly reflect the mode of life being depicted.

However, homosexual literary themes, compared to heterosexual, are not judged with nearly an equal degree of candor and realism. The official reason for this is that all homosexual behavior is defined as criminal under the law. Books allegedly "scientific" and "objective" may go to all possible limits of pornographic description; but if a bit of doggerel appears in print, dealing humorously with a certain type of homosexual, or a story, dealing subjectively and realistically with a homosexual attachment the spectre of Obscenity stands ready with fangs bared.

Despite the fact that a majority of persons have some degree of homosexual inclination, and the fact that this class of persons includes a great many responsible, creative individuals in all walks of life, very few channels of public expression are open to them. In spite of the great mass of vituperation and prejudice published against them, they still have remarkably little latitude in speaking on their own behalf.

ONE intends to fight to keep these channels open, to widen them, to insure for homosexuals the right to speak for themselves, to publish and disseminate literature wherein the homosexual may answer the prejudice and false charges against him with facts and forthright statements. In simple words, ONE rightfully demands the "Freedom of the Press."

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ANN CARLL REID Editor

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