Britain to pardon men convicted of seeking gay sex
Thousands to have names cleared; some want apology. Since 2012, men with such convictions who are still alive have been able to apply to have their names cleared.
The men were convicted tens of thousands — of them of crimes — like buggery, gross indecency and loitering with intent. They had been arrested in bars, coffee houses, bars and public bathrooms, and sometimes in the privacy of their homes and with their partners.
In many cases, their only offense was seeking intimacy with another man.
Decades after homosexuality was decriminalized in Britain, the government announced on Thursday that it would posthumously pardon thousands of gay and bisexual men who were convicted, in essence, of having or seeking gay sex.
Since 2012, men with such convictions who are still alive have been able to apply to have their names cleared.
The law providing for the pardons, which could take effect in a matter of months now that it has the support of the Conservative government, is named for Alan Turing, the mathematician who made a major contribution to Britain in World War II by cracking Germany’s Enigma coding machine and was a central figure in the development of the computer.
Turing was convicted on charges of homosexuality in 1952 and committed suicide in 1954.
The government apologized in 2009 for its treatment of him, and in 2013, Queen Elizabeth II formally pardoned him.
In April, the head of Britain’s signals intelligence agency, GCHQ, also apologized for its past discrimination against gays.
While Britain, like many countries, has experienced a sharp turnabout in its attitudes toward homosexuality — same-sex marriage has been legal since 2014 — the announcement did not meet with uniform enthusiasm.
Stonewall, an advocacy group for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality, said it did not go far enough because it still requires a case-by-case review of pardon applications by living men. Others said they wanted an apology, not a pardon.
The Turing Law was put forward by John Sharkey, a member of the House of Lords who championed the pardon for Turing.
He estimated that 15,000 of 65,000 men convicted under laws that criminalized gay sex were still alive.
Since October 2012, men who were convicted of sexual offenses that are no longer illegal have been able to apply to the Home Office to have those crimes expunged under what is known as the “disregard process.”
So far, 335 applications have been received, and 84 granted.
Under the plan announced Thursday, those men also will receive an automatic pardon.
“It is hugely important that we pardon people convicted of historical sexual offenses who would be innocent of any crime today,” Sam Gyimah, the parliamentary undersecretary of state for prisons and probation, said in a statement.
John Nicolson, a member of Parliament from Scotland, has put forward a bill that would offer an automatic blanket pardon to men convicted of having gay sex. That bill appears likely to be blocked by the Conservative majority.
Gyimah said the Nicolson proposal was too broad.