1975 - Unmarried America

o Intercourse law justified
The possibility of pregnancy - and the danger of sexual
exploitation - justify a law prohibiting sexual intercourse
between males and minor females. without denial of equal
protection. Flores 1'. State. 230 N.W.2d 639. Wisconsin
Supreme Court.
o Incest law hard on 'males
"Not because they are men. but because of their positions in
the 'family." a law' prohibiting incest may penalize males more
severely than females. People 1'. York. 329 N.E.2d 845.
Appellate Court of Illinois.
o Indecency without Ipublic'
Ruling on an ordinance relating to public indecency and
immorality. the Court of Appeals of Arizona (Division 1. Dept.
A) has reasoned that "the ordinance does not require -that
members of the public be present. only that the event occurred
in a public place ... · Further, "there is no requirement that a
particular individual's decency be outraged or have his morals
injured or corrupted.
In Johnson v. Phoenix City Court, 535 P.2d 1067 (5/22/75),
the-defendant and the arresting police' officer were the only
persons present when, in an adult movie theater, the'defendant
made sexual advances on the officer.
continued from page 32
Psychi~tric
justice
describe our economy as ·sick'. Facing inflationary dangers in
1969, President Nixon announced 'We are on the road to
recovery from the disease of runaway prices.'
"Now everybody knows that runaway prices are not really a
disease. But where this is forgotten, where the 'as ir of the
metaphor becomes lost, then something new occurs. We begin
to think that runaway prices ARE disease. And if we are
logical, we will assign a doctor to 'cure' it.
"Absurd as it may sound, this is exactly what has happened
in the field of human behavior." ,
Psychiatrists stand apart from other psychologists precisely
because they are also physicians. and their medical status gives
them the most authoritative psychology credentials in
American society. especially within the legal system. And the
Manu'al of Men taf Disorders, last revised as a whole in 1968,
speaks' of psychiatrists as physicians and says that with. the
adoption by the APA of. the revised manual (in which
homosexuality was listed as a mental disorder), "American
psychiatrists for the first time in history will be using
diagnostic categories that are part of an ,international
classification of diseases."
One of the foremost critics of psychiatry, Dr. Thomas S.
Szasz, himself a psychiatrist, expresses the '''disease
controversy" in such a way that he gives, unwittingly, a crystalclear
charactet\zation of homophibia. the fear and hatred of
homosexuals. . .
Dr. Szasz is particularly known for two books, The Myth of
Mental Illness and Law, Liberty and Psychiatry - and this
quote is from a short essay on The Myth of Mental Illness in
the book Ideology and Insanity:
_
"The pOsition "according to which' contemporary
psychotherapists deal with problems in living, not with mental
illnesses and their cures, stands in sharp opposition to the
currently prevalent position, according to which psychiatrists
treat mental diseases, which are just as 'real' and 'objective' as
bodily diseases.
"I submit that the holders of the latter view have, no evidenc~
whatever to justify their claim, which is actually a kind 0\ '
psychiatric propaga~da: their aim is to create in the popular " '
mind a confident belief that mental illness is some sort of
disease entity. like an infection or a malignancy.
"If this were true, one could catch or get a mental illness,
one might have or harbor it. one might transmit it to others,
and finally one could get rid of , it." And this kind of thinking
mirrors the thought processes of homophobes who claim
homosexuals would infect society if given equal rights and thus
should be confined until "cured to.
The APA's Manual of Mental Disorders. 1968 edition,
defines the category of sexual deviations as well as names eight
of the deviations, of which homosexuality was one. This
definition is particularly interesting because it certainly
doesn't sound like a disease classification. And Dr. Szasz as
well as sexual reformers would probably say the definition
sounds more like a "judgement" than a medical diagnosis: '
"This category is for individuals whose sexual interests are
directed primarily toward objects other than people of the
opposite sex, toward sexual acts not usually associated with
coitus, or toward coitus performed under bizarre
circumstances as in necrophilia, pedophilia, sexual sadism,
and fetishism. Even though many find their practices
distasteful, they remain unable to substitute normal sexual
behavior for them. This diagnosis is not llppropriate for
individuals who perform deviant sexual acts because normal
sexual objects are not available to them."
Two quotations from famous authors and experts put this
medical diagnosis into perspective. (
"One of the most conspicuous features of psychiatric history -
is that it is totally different from medical history," wrote
psychiatrist Gregory Zilboorg in The History of Medical
Psychology. 0 Continued on page 43
SlJR ~UILlLIETllN IaOARJD)
Midwest conference:
~ Women and the Law
~t},
The 1975 Midwest Conference on Women and the
Law, sponsored by the Women's Group of Washington
University School of Law, St. Louis. Missouri. will be
held October 24-26.
Workshops planned are government and politics, the
criminal justice system, gay rights. athletic discrimhnation,
ethics, minority women, family and juvenile law.
New gay bibliography
A new Gay Bibliography (5th Edition). put out by the
Task Force on Gay Liberation, is now available .. This
non-fiction list includes over 175 items: books, articles,
pamphlets, audio-visuals. periodicals, bibliographies and
directories.
Orders (25c per copy. $1 for five copies) should be sent
to: Barbara Gittings, c/o T.F.G.L., P.O. Box 2383.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 19103.
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