It is in the highest degree important that it should be
clearly understood that we want no relaxation of moral
obligations. At present we suffer an inconceivably cruel wrong."
We have always to remember, and there is, indeed, no possibility of
forgetting, that the question of homosexuality is a social question.
Within certain limits, the gratification of the normal sexual impulse,
even outside marriage, arouses no general or profound indignation; and is
regarded as a private matter; rightly or wrongly, the gratification of the
homosexual impulse is regarded as a public matter. This attitude is more
or less exactly reflected in the law. Thus it happens that whenever a man
is openly detected in a homosexual act, however exemplary his life may
previously have been, however admirable it may still be in all other
relations, every ordinary normal citizen, however licentious and
pleasure-loving his own life may be, feels it a moral duty to regard the
offender as hopelessly damned and to help in hounding him out of society.
At very brief intervals cases occur, and without reaching the newspapers
are more or less widely known, in which distinguished men in various
fields, not seldom clergymen, suddenly disappear from the country or
commit suicide in consequence of some such exposure or the threat of it.
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