‘Gay men still stigmatised after 1967 legal landmark’

LGBT rights campaigners have urged people to remember gay men were still stigmatised after the Sexual Offences Act 1967 received Royal Assent.

While the law marked a new beginning for homosexual men in Britain there was still a long way to go in the UK before anything like equality was achieved.

“It was a legal landmark and it showed for the first time that it was not imprisonable just to be in love with someone of the same sex,” Stonewall Cymru director Andrew White said.

“It was a partial decriminalisation – it was certainly not the kind of equalising law that some would have us believe.

“It still led to a spike of arrests in some parts of Britain. If you slept in the same bed as your partner in a shared house that was still illegal – it was an act of gross indecency.”

The gross indecency law of 1885 had been used to convict computer genius Alan Turing in 1952 and jail playwright Oscar Wilde in 1895. The 1967 legislation covered consenting adults over 21 in a private place – so staying in a friend’s spare room was still illegal.

“That perpetuated the notion that same-sex relationships were less valid and people with same-sex attachments were somehow lesser human beings.

“The stigma still went on. It took another 13 years for the law to change in Scotland and 15 in Northern Ireland.”

Yesterday marked the 50th anniversary of the 1967 act getting Royal Assent. It had taken 10 years from the publication of the Wolfenden Report for recommendations to be acted on.

That concluded in 1957 that “homosexual behaviour between consenting adults in private should no longer be a criminal offence”.

Mr White said: “Even when it was passed, the language of the supportive MPs was such that they were taking pity on gay people. They were at pains to say how they did not condone homosexual acts. We have come a long way.”

After the repeal the age of consent for gay men was set at 21 compared to 16 for heterosexual men and women.

The 1967 change was not extended to Scotland until 1980 and to Northern Ireland until 1982. It did not include the Armed Forces or Merchant Navy and there sex between men remained criminal.

Gay military personnel and merchant seamen could still be jailed until 1994. Legislation that allowed seafarers to be sacked for homosexual acts on UK merchant ships was repealed last month. “Trans people still face a number of legal barriers and LGBT people face discrimination on a daily basis, in our faith communities and in our local communities,” Mr White said.

“And in 72 countries same-sex relationships are still illegal and it is punishable by death in eight countries.” But 1967 still matters. Mr White added: “We should mark it as a significant anniversary but still work to ensure that progress is not lost and that we make further gains that are positive to people’s everyday lives.”

Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell now heads the Peter Tatchell Foundation. He said: “The liberalisation of 1967 was not as liberal as many people believe. An estimated 15,00020,000 gay and bisexual men were convicted in the decades that followed.

“That’s because homosexuality was only partly decriminalised.

“The remaining anti-gay laws were policed more aggressively than before by a state that continued to oppose LGBT acceptance and equality.”

He estimated between about 100,000 men were convicted of consenting same-sex acts over the years.

“Many were jailed and nearly all suffered devastating knock-on consequences,” he said. “They lost their jobs and marriages, families and friends disowned them, and they were abused and sometimes assaulted in the street.”