British Second World War codebreaker Alan Turing receives Royal pardon

Re: At last

I think everything is well on the issue of homosexuality in the UK now, isn't it? Or, it will be from next March. Maybe I'm living a blinkered existence?

Re: At last

That would be hard work and need lots of form filling.

They could make a start by having QEII make a public apology to all those that were criminalised by this law. Next would be the people that suffered from shellshock and were shot for being cowards.

The Queen's Xmas speech would be a good venue for it.

Re: At last

It's more than just a well known case. The subtext here was that Turing was prosecuted at the behest of the United States, because they were going through the phase of obsessing about internal enemies that started after WW2. I suspect that without this, the case against him would have been quashed as not in the national interest, in case he was needed again by GCHQ, and he would have been told to be more circumspect in future. As happened to a number of other people in vaguely similar situations.

We don't know how many other gay people were forced out of government work as a result of the US pressure, but they represent a special category.

Re: And the other objection is

That a "pardon" implies that what was done was wrong.

Re: Pandering

Your last paragraph is a non sequitur.

As for Uganda, they and some other African countries are under the influence of US fundamentalist Christian right wingers. And why? Because these appalling people, losing the argument in their own country,are going off to spend their money in less advanced ones. We had one of them from this country stirring up trouble in Jamaica recently,so we aren't squeaky clean. (In another version of this, US fundamentalists fund settlements in Israel to help bring about the End Times. You couldn't, as their Fox News friends put it, make this stuff up.)

A Conservative government doing this in this country helps to undermine their efforts, which is a good thing in my view,even though it should have been done years ago. There are still people in Africa who think that, on the whole, British rule wasn't quite as bad as what happened afterwards, and this pardon probably encourages them a bit.

Re: Pandering

""'AT LAST' Emotional hysteria? Do you think it makes any difference to Alan Turing?"""

""Trying to re-write history to fit into the modern way of thinking just panders to a minority and allows politicians to get on the look how enlightened I am bandwagon.""

Aaaah the old vices of leftism, Political Correctness (PC) and Rewriting History (RH).

I shall not provide any example of PC because this history is a PC history.

As per an example of HR I would give you this current one: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/09/north-korea-kim-jong-un-uncle

Re: Pandering

I couldn't agree with you more.

If we issue a Royal Pardon for Turing, then logically we have to issue pardons for everyone who was convicted under the mediaeval law in force at the time.

If we issue a pardon for everyone convicted under that law, then logically we should issue pardons to people convicted under *every* law now seen to be barbaric. Pardons for the shot shell-shocked accused of cowardice in WW I; pardons for all the suffragettes; pardons for all the children hanged for stealing a loaf; the list is endless.

Then, once we legalise the consumption of cannabis, we have, logically, to pardon all those convicted under the present law. And so on.

This idea is called "re-writing history". Orwell satirised it in '1984'.

People, the damage is done! Although all these laws were abominable, they were the law at the time these injustices happened, and the injustices happened within a valid, if barbaric, rule of law.

We have to learn, improve, and move on. Pardons, and even apologies, just don't make sense.

Re: What A Crock of SHIT

" The law was grossly unsound "

By modern standards. By the social standards of the day it was widely regarded as a deviant practice which should be illegal. You might not like that, but that's how things were. And the underlying social attitudes persisted long after the law was changed - remember a certain glittery rock star's sham wedding to some Austrlain bird to prove he wasn't gay? Or how a reasonably long list of celebrities and politicians had to resign because they were gay, usually after denying the fact? I don't think Freddie Mercury ever publicly admitted being gay.

It's all very well condemning old laws for being wrong, but often they mirror the social attitudes of their times.

Re: What A Crock of SHIT

while it may always be debatable .. This law was felt necessary in the society to prevent depravity from taking over .. Most of the population aren't in favour of gays anyway .. its a bit like feminism .. and despite what anyone wants to think or pretend to be tolerant to other views or being politically correct, this whole LGB thing is creating a havoc in society and making a mockery of marriages .. Hence it is also not accepted by any of the major religions of the society whether Christianity, Hinduism or Islam ..

Re: What A Crock of SHIT

"This was because some jerk with an axe to grind completely ignored the constitution"

Go on then, tell us how they ignored the constitution? We don't have one. Yanks have one: Their government routinely ignores it, so it means nothing, although the population still cling to the lifeless document as if it were a holy relic..

The idea of a constitution in the UK being the sum of all statute simply isn't the same thing, because there is no bedrock on which to build.

Re: What A Crock of SHIT

That's why it is a pardon. A pardon says "yes you did it but";

we have forgiven you/ we don't mind/we understand you had a reason/we now like you.