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Washington Post February 18, 1963
Quaker Group Urges Sex Enlightenment
LONDON, Feb. 18 (Monday) A group of Quakers today called for a more enlightened approach to sexual relationships, including homosexuality.
The 11-member group, including two psychiatrists and two school headmasters, said there was yet not definite answer to such questions as "whether homosexual contacts are really 'unnatural' or repulsive, whether pre-marital intercourse is necessarily a bad preparation for marriage, whether to have a variety of sexual partners does, in fact, weaken intimate relations and destroy a community."
Their report, "Towards a Quaker View of Sex," was not representative of the views of all Quakers, they said.
The report said that sexual relationships have such profound effect on the community that they cannot be left wholly to private judgment. There must be a governing morality of some sort, the report declared.
But, in noting a great increase in adolescent sex relations and in pre-marital sex generally, the report said: "It must be accepted that light-hearted and loving casual contacts can be known without profound damage or 'moral degeneracy' being the result in either partner."
On homosexuality it said: "One should no more deplore homosexuality than left-handedness, though one can condemn and prohibit specific acts."
The authors reject "almost completely" the traditional Christian approach to morality with its rigid definitions of right and wrong.
"Where there is genuine tenderness, an openness to responsibility and the seed of commitment, God is surely not shut out," the said.
Washington Daily News February 18, 1963
'Where There's Genuine Tenderness'
Quakers O.K. Casual Sex
London, Feb. 18--An 11-member Quaker study group, including two psychiatrists and two school headmasters, today declared there are no definite answers to such questions as 'whether homosexual contacts are really 'unnatural' or repulsive, whether pre-marital intercourse is necessarily a bad preparation for marriage, and whether having a variety of sexual partners does, in fact, weaken intimate relations and destroy a community."
The group, in a report entitled "Towards a Quaker View of Sex," called for a more enlightened approach to sexual relationships, altho members admitted their findings were not representative titled "Towards a Quaker in Britain or elsewhere.
Noting a great increase in adolescent and pre-marital sexual relations, the report said: "It must be accepted that light-hearted and loving casual contacts can be known without profound damage or 'moral degernacy' bring the result in either partner.
"One should no more deplore homosexuality than lefthandedness," the report went on, "tho one can condemn and prohibit specific acts.
Where there is genuine tendernesss, an openness to responsibility and the seend of the commitment, God is surely not shut out."
The report rejected "almost completely" the traditional approach to Christian morality "with its rigid definitions of right and wrong." But it also declared sex relationships have so profound an effect on the community they cannot be left to private judgments, asserting there must be "a governing morality of some sort."
