Sorry Seems To Be The Easiest Word
In the past few weeks, a proposal has been aired by several prominent public figures to ‘begin a discussion about pardoning all the men, alive or deceased, who like Alan Turing were convicted under the UK’s Gross Indecency law and other discriminatory anti-gay legislation’.
Phew! This particular law emanates from 1885; homosexual acts between consenting adults in private were decriminalised in Britain eighty-two years later, though outdoor importuners and those lured into public conveniences via police honey-traps continued well into the 1990s (remember George Michael’s infamous ‘lapse’?); that’s more pardons to get through than the aftermath of a dinner party hosted by the Heinz Beans Appreciation Society. When John Wolfenden made his recommendations to reform the homosexual laws a decade before they finally were reformed, British prisons still contained over a thousand men held on charges relating to these laws. Who wants to nominate themselves to begin noting down the names and addresses of those incarcerated in 1957 alone?
The treatment Alan Turing received was indeed appalling, particularly for a man whose contribution to ending the Second World War was arguably as significant as any general or ground-force troop; but it has to be remembered that the brutal punishment dished out to him was a consequence of the law at the time. He wasn’t alone; he just happened to be someone who achieved something remarkable for his country and the free world, and what happened to him after the war was undoubtedly a poor way of paying him back. Yes, the law that ruined him was wrong, but those who brought the weight of it down upon him were the same people who would have administered the other laws of the time, such as the ones that led to the unjust executions of Derek Bentley and Timothy Evans. If there is a law for a particular offence, it will be enforced to the letter, regardless of how morally dubious. One could argue the current Joint Enterprise law is just as rotten; but it’s still being used to imprison young men who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The need or perceived need to be seen to express contrition for crimes committed in the name of government or state is a fairly recent phenomenon, probably derived from the confessional strain of pseudo-psychological ‘closure’ so beloved of our American cousins. The US film director Spike Lee once opined that all white Americans should issue a public apology for the slave trade; such an apology, had it been forthcoming, may have provided some superficial solace for the descendents of a nineteenth century Southern plantation worker, but as they weren’t the ones who endured what he or she had two-hundred years previously, how could the impact of a belated apology have been anything other than vicarious comfort?
When David Cameron apologised for the Bloody Sunday massacre, forty years might have passed, but it was still well within living memory; families of those who were killed at the scene of one of the blackest watersheds of the Northern Ireland Troubles appreciated the gesture, but failure to apologise in the days following the 1972 incident by the Tory Home Secretary Reginald Maudling had provoked firebrand Ulster MP Bernadette Devlin to assault him on the floor of the Commons, something that elicited no apology on either side. Cameron’s apology followed the long-overdue outcome of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, but (as far as I’m aware) there has been no inquiry into Bloody Friday, when the IRA detonated twenty-six separate bombs in eighty minutes during one awful afternoon in Belfast six months after Bloody Sunday, resulting in nine deaths.
However, are we to judge all the atrocities of the Troubles as acts of war, something that has also resulted in no charges ever being brought against the French Police for the 1961 Paris Massacre, when an estimated 200 demonstrating Algerians were slaughtered on the streets of the French capital? This terrible event, barely known outside France, has long been regarded by the French authorities as part of the Algerian War of Independence; and even though the Paris Massacre took place outside of Algeria, all of France’s colonies were viewed as sharing the soil of the mother country, a caveat that cannily avoids it being classed as an illegal peacetime action.
This is the problem with pardons or public apologies years after the event. Yes, all of the examples given are horrible; but they each fell within the remit of the law as it stood at the time. One particular law cannot be singled out for special treatment; if you’re going to discredit one law for miscarriages of justice, you have to discredit them all. In early eighteenth century Britain, there were over two-hundred offences punishable by death, including one of ‘strong evidence of malice in a child aged 7-14 years of age’. How many children went to the gallows for that one? Surely they deserve pardoning? And what of all those who were deported to Australian penal colonies when the death penalty was abolished for the more minor offences? The Holocaust is rightly remembered as the crime against humanity it was, but genocide was not invented by the Nazis; one could argue the Americans had a fairly good crack at it where Native American tribes were concerned. So, how far back are we to go? Is it time for the Queen to pardon Joan of Arc?
There is also an element of such high-profile apologies being inspired by whatever happens to be the resurrected cause of the moment, especially one brought to the attention of vote-seeking politicians by popular celebrities with a conscience. At worst, they can be seen as token gestures to appease the reawakened outrage of the masses, and they come across as no more convincing or heartfelt than a sullen adolescent being forced to say ‘sorry’ by a parent in front of the teacher they took the piss out of on Facebook.
Like hanging a killer, a pardon won’t bring back the dead; there can be a dozen different lobby groups demanding backdated justice for the long-gone victims of various historical crimes, but a Prime Minister standing up in the Commons and issuing an apology is ultimately worthless. Such a statement, whether apology or official pardon, can only serve to make those who granted it feel good about themselves by doing the right thing where their predecessors didn’t. David Cameron can declare himself a better man than Edward Heath because of his Bloody Sunday apology, but where be the apology for the numerous crimes committed on Cameron’s watch? Expect one of his predecessors to make amends around 2055.
Petunia Winegum
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February 11, 2015 at 9:53 am -
“…where be the apology for the numerous crimes committed on Cameron’s watch? Expect one of his predecessors to make amends around 2055.”
Are you expecting the resurrection of the Blessed Maggie?
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February 11, 2015 at 11:08 am -
I think it’s high time the Normans apologised. Nasty lot they were, especially oop north.
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February 11, 2015 at 9:37 pm -
The Normans must be giving credit, they realised that that the Great unwashed of North East England required work after the end of coal mining so they built castles for tourists
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February 11, 2015 at 10:29 pm -
I’m not sure they had tourism in mind while they were building castles….
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February 11, 2015 at 11:40 am -
It’s a curious situation when you have one section of society – those who declare themselves ‘victims’ of historical unprovable abuse – who are forgiven their trespasses instantly as everything they do and everything they are is a product of untold trauma, and yet others who’s lifetime of good behaviour and exemplary conduct can be destroyed in an instant. A very powerful weapon for a state to be able to wield.
I work on the principle of ‘treat others as you want to be treated, but be nobody’s fool’ – the ability to imagine oneself in the shoes of others appears to be dying though. If ‘Sorry’ is OK for politicians, why are those accused of historic crimes from 30/40/50/60 years ago not cut any slack whatsoever?-
February 11, 2015 at 12:03 pm -
Now, now Chris, mustn’t get ‘off message’ must we! Queer is the new Black after all and we mustn’t expect those of the bendy persuasion to adhere to the same laws and standards of conduct as those curious men who prefer (Ick!) fannies to bums.
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February 11, 2015 at 1:39 pm -
Gays aren’t gay because it’s fashionable, and we are expected to adhere to the same laws as straight people. You know, consenting adults, don’t frighten the horses, all that stuff. If you think that revelling in recently acquired equality is unreasonable, I can just imagine what fun you would have been following the US civil war. Section 28 was repealed only 12 years ago and our current Prime Hypocrite voted against that repeal.. We only got Civil Partnerships in 2004 and marriage two years ago (about which I’m pretty “meh”), but once again, it was the Prime Hypocrite using gays as a political cuddly toy to show how caring and sharing he was. Don’t blame us for that (even Stonewall wasn’t pushing the issue at the time and were taken by surprise by Cameron.
A gay paedophile should expect the same treatment as a straight one, as an example of how equality of the law applies. Sincerely, one of the “bendy persuasion” (and if you think gay sex is all about bending over, you have a serious lack of imagination).
As regards this, no I don’t support retrospective pardoning. Think of all the families of burnt witches we’d need to pay compensation to.
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February 11, 2015 at 2:16 pm -
Abide by the laws? Like “I don’t want you in my place so go away” like I still get? No, you set up faux controversies and whine to media and the courts; vide the B&B recently and the controversy over bakeries making you a wedding cake. How about firemen being compelled to attend gay rights parades whether they wish to or not?
Please, do not attempt to make your supposed plight anything like slavery or reconstruction, I visited the deep South in the 50’s and 60’s and you weren’t treated like the ‘niggras’ so do leave off.
All this is grotesque hypocrisy, neither Stephen Fry nor Elton John were ‘gay’ until it became fashionable, and as for my lack of imagination, I will keep to it thanks all the same.
Please do not take the forgoing as a personal attack, it is not. I don’t much care who sticks what where, but I don’t see why I should be required to find it wonderful, and yes, that is the prevailing PC aatitude. How about you do your thing and I do mine and neither expect the other to ‘celebrate’ it.
If we are all to be treated equally, how about Fry shuts the fuck up about Turing, who was prosecuted under the laws as they then stood-
February 11, 2015 at 2:28 pm -
*How about you do your thing and I do mine and neither expect the other to ‘celebrate’ it.*
Yes, now that is it, exactly.
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February 11, 2015 at 2:39 pm -
It’s fairly apparent, if you check out the real gut-busting paedo-maniacs behind the paedo-panic that it was widespread male Pederasty in Care Homes that has bound them all together. All the historical sex abuse cases were about man on boy until quite recently. That the Establishment knows that this is what is really at stake is why Savile has been stitched up like a kipper as a hetero-equaliser. Cameron was clearly briefed in whatever coda was required as to what the problem really was, and came up with his, “Oooh! Lets’ not have a Gay Witch-hunt”, for which he was then vilified by the gays who said he was stereotyping them.
In the modern world of multi-sex, there is clearly much more of a case that older men shouldn’t be having under-age sex with females on the basis that “well, they’ll be doing it soon enough anyway” since we now recognise that some females may be gay, and have big issues later about what they did, just as many boys from the care system are now men who think, “I’m not gay. How did that happen?”
That the tort-lawyers are now exploiting whatever angst there is and working alongside con-artists who are milking the whole thing for every penny or bit of personal kudos they can garner is another obvious thing, hiding in plain sight. Quite why soem elements of the media who are normally only too keen to be gay-phobic are playing along with all this nonsense is less easy to understand. perhaps it is a combination of their general anti-permissive policy and worry over being rumbled by some Hate Crime torting.
A little less hypocrisy all round would help everybody.
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February 11, 2015 at 3:13 pm -
*All the historical sex abuse cases were about man on boy until quite recently. That the Establishment knows that this is what is really at stake is why Savile has been stitched up like a kipper as a hetero-equaliser.*
So, the Establishment want to lobby to protect the Gays? Why? Beats me.
But how about we don’t have a pro or anti Gay Lobby. How about I don’t even have to know who is what?
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February 11, 2015 at 3:15 pm -
In addition to this (as cogent an analysis as I have read) I wonder if there isn’t a touch of envy here. All these nubile young girls throwing themselves at pop stars and entertainers, and all the lads out in the cold without even a smile bestowed. All the lads are grown up now, here’s the chance for revenge! Let’s face it, it’s not Joe Blogs the milkman being had up here is it? It’s helped along by our new age morality where it at least seems that ogling young girls is out but homosexuality is to be an unquestionable good.
Nor is it aided by bitter middle aged women deciding that their poor lives are entirely the fault of the star who patted a willing rump in 1966. -
February 11, 2015 at 3:48 pm -
“It’s fairly apparent, if you check out the real gut-busting paedo-maniacs behind the paedo-panic that it was widespread male Pederasty in Care Homes that has bound them all together.” Yes, well having differing ages of consent for gay and straight sex didn’t help that one.
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February 11, 2015 at 3:08 pm -
* All this is grotesque hypocrisy, neither Stephen Fry nor Elton John were ‘gay’ until it became fashionable *
The new millenium’s gay hero Ian McKellen is featured in the newspapers in the 1970’s. It was an article about how schoolgirls were going to see the theatre to see their Crush in the nude. (Shakespeare or somesuch excuse). He is quoted and says nothing to disabuse the schoolgirls of their crush and indeed why should he? He was never going to sleep with any of them was he. I pointed this media-hypocrisy and hiding in plain sight out to some 21st century gay on a forum and he was very angry and called me a liar for this terrible slur about his hero. So I posted the news-cutting. It probably illustrates the scale of wilful ignorance that the vanity of the present lends to itself to encourage these notions of realigning the past. By their very self-righteousness they then fail to see how easily the mistakes of the past can be being repeated because nobody ever wants to learn the real lessons of history.
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February 11, 2015 at 3:45 pm -
“Please do not take the forgoing as a personal attack, it is not. I don’t much care who sticks what where, but I don’t see why I should be required to find it wonderful, and yes, that is the prevailing PC aatitude. How about you do your thing and I do mine and neither expect the other to ‘celebrate’ it”.:…. Well, that would be a whole lot easier if you didn’t drop in snide remarks that prompt a response from someone who is fed up of people perceiving all gays together as some sort of lumpen prolgayriat. We are individuals.
Once laws were passed, it was inevitable they would be tested. Am I surprised about the B and B non-scandals and cake cases? No. Would I have brought them? No. Do I care about the outcome? Not really – either way. If people don’t want my money because I’m gay – fine, I’ll take it elsewhere to someone who really doesn’t give a shit or is actually supportive. Surprisingly to you, perhaps, I’m in favour of discrimination by private businesses (except by state mandated services and their private contractors) because I don’t want to make those people who “tolerate” me through gritted teeth any richer.
Elton John announced he was bisexual in 1976 and has been openly gay since 1988. i.e. since he knew it wouldn’t harm his career. Are you really that surprised that people come out only when they feel safe to do so? Do you think Stephen Fry (who I agree is an annoying ass sometimes) would not really be loud after he struggled to keep his homosexuality secret during his teenage years at public school, and by his own account did not engage in sexual activity for 16 years from 1979 until 1995? Do you honestly think they play with other men’s genitals because it’s “fashionable”?
When have you ever been refused entry to a gay bar? And as for being treated like blacks, have you ever had someone cross the road to punch you in the face because you “looked gay”. I have. Have you been harassed several times by the police because “you don’t look normal”? I have. Have you ever had a gang of military personnel (we didn’t know if they were squaddies or sailors because our town hosted both) out on the piss, surround you and your straight mate and then wade in with fists flying and feet kicking because, well, if one of you looks/behaves/talks queer, then your mate must be too? I have. I am not whining for your pity here: just stating events, facts of life, and why wouldn’t we celebrate that they have changed for the better, mostly? You’re probably thinking I brought it on myself by the way I looked. But no. People did those things because they knew they could get away with it because who cared about queers?
As for the pardoning of Turing and other retrospective convictions, I made it clear in my first reply to you I don’t agree with it. All this “I don’t want it in my face” or “shoved down my throat” (fnarr fnarr) that I read on several mainstream websites (no, I know you haven’t said that, exactly) is just another way of saying, “Well, if I have to put up with you I suppose I will but couldn’t you really go away and exist in a quiet place where I really don’t have to deal with it?” To which my response is “Fuck off. I am who I am and you’ll have to deal with me on that basis, or not at all.” And if people choose not at all, I have no problem with that. I have lost nothing.
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February 11, 2015 at 3:57 pm -
At least you didn’t have Stinson on your tail…
Or maybe you did…-
February 11, 2015 at 4:42 pm -
I’m not his type. It’s the over-30s that pique my interest.
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February 11, 2015 at 4:16 pm -
Not let in some bars? check. Harassed by the police for ‘looking funny’? check. Grief from other groups, what, you never heard of the Mods and Rockers? check. You want to read your own posts before going on about snide remarks.
Do I give a fuck about the grief? No, I don’t endlessly whine about it either. If you want to do the cause a favour, tell them all to shut the fuck up because they’re pathetic and make your life harder; you tell them, it’s no use from me because I’m not in the club.
Like I said, I don’t give a stuff either way, as long as I have the right to be left alone about it; that’s one of the basic rights btw, to be left alone. I will probably never meet you as I daresay we move in different worlds, but you have a great time your way, I’ll have one mine and if we ever meet I’ll buy the first round, hoes that!-
February 11, 2015 at 4:38 pm -
I’ll drink to that.
But as I said, I’m an individual. That means very little power. I see news items on the Pink News website and think “why is that a story – just because it has a gay person in it”… like all “causes” – many will milk any incident (Pink News vs Al Sharpton) and a vaster majority just want to get on with their own lives in their own way and don’t want to be part of a crusade.
I realise I ranted, but I know the pendulum will swing again and gays will again be beyond the pale. Maybe I’m ultra defensive but I’ll just make one final point. If it really REALLY doesn’t matter to you, why mention it at all? You can ignore it.
P.S. Sorry you went through all that grief too…. I expect that, even though you haven’t /don’t whine about it, it pissed you off too.
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February 11, 2015 at 5:02 pm -
*If it really REALLY doesn’t matter to you, why mention it at all? You can ignore it.*
You didn’t direct that at me but you could have just as easily so forgive me if I butt in on a private spat to answer for myself.
You are wrong, I can’t ignore it, I’ve tried for years, but it still goes on and on. I try to ignore it because your sexual preferences, like sex, should be a private thing and not the subject for pressure groups and demanding special treatment. That isn’t your only assumption that is wrong, the other is this one:
*All this “I don’t want it in my face” or “shoved down my throat” (fnarr fnarr) that I read on several mainstream websites (no, I know you haven’t said that, exactly) is just another way of saying, “Well, if I have to put up with you I suppose I will but couldn’t you really go away and exist in a quiet place where I really don’t have to deal with it?”*
It isn’t another way of saying it as far as I’m concerned. It is another way of saying ‘get over yourself’ or as you say after “Fuck off. I am who I am and you’ll have to deal with me on that basis, or not at all.” But perhaps that is only alright if it applies to you, not the rest of us. Nothing like special treatment then ?
Yes, I think you are ultra defensive and that means if you met my mates you’d piss them all off, the straight ones as well as the gay ones.
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February 11, 2015 at 6:30 pm -
What the FUCK are you on about? How is asking for equality demanding special treatment? And if we have had to be loud and nancy and queer to get it, well, consider it payback for the last 100 years of straight tightarsed legal and street bullying. And you can ignore it – you turn the page, you switch the channel, you don’t go to Pride (it’s not compulsory), and you don’t have to talk about it. You don’t realise you’re still trying to tell some of us (those who don’t meet your criteria of “adequate”) to shut up and get back in our box.
And you’re also wrong. When I say “Fuck off. I am who I am and you’ll have to deal with me on that basis, or not at all,” I try to treat people with the same attitude. I call it respect. I try to respect them for who they are in their morality and behaviour and what they do, not how they look, or where they’re from, or they way they speak.
Get over myself? What have I got to get over? On the one had you say my sexuality doesn’t matter, and on the other, you don’t want to deal with it. I probably want to meet neither you nor your “gay mates”, whereas at least with Robert The Biker, I feel I could have an honest , if heated, exchange of ideas. And a drink. You appear to have shut your mind.
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February 11, 2015 at 6:39 pm -
Psalm 133:1
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February 11, 2015 at 6:45 pm -
Wow Windsock, that’s almost incoherent. Nope I’m wrong it is totally incoherent. Guess I was right, you are a victim of your own prejudices and can only see what you want to.
I’ll say goodnight, I have never , ever been able to deal with those who are so certain that everything they think, even based on assumptions, about everybody else is right.
Your problem isn’t being gay, it’s being you.
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February 11, 2015 at 6:48 pm -
Blocked Dwarf: Bless you for bringing some humour/irony!
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February 11, 2015 at 6:55 pm -
Not Long Now:
I don’t see that it’s incoherent. I understood every sentence I wrote. I have written about my experiences and what I see and make of the world. You would have followed my argument from my original posts with Robert The biker, where I do and don’t agree with trends in politics involving gay people If you don’t get it, maybe those blinkers are not helping.
It’s back to “Fuck off. I am who I am and you’ll have to deal with me on that basis, or not at all.”
Not at all is fine by me. I wouldn’t want to be you either.
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February 11, 2015 at 4:37 pm -
I remember a gang of yobs from round my way – the good side of town & most from ‘good families’ – all getting done for ‘queer bashing’ in the early 90’s. Some of them went to prison for GBH – and rightly so.
Fast-forward 25 years and the only nightspots in the City Centre that are really thriving now are the Gay Bars & Clubs that sprang up in the early 2000’s. Some things have changed for the better – the lads who ‘came out’ from my year at school all (without any exception, and it was a big compresive) tended to go off to University or to work elsewhere before they were confirmed any speculation about their sexuality.
It was commercialisation that made it all ‘acceptable’ though – ‘The Pink Pound’ and all that, just as ‘Girl Power’ is all aimed as excessive shopping, shoes & booze. The pressure on young people has probably gone full-circle – whereas previously young men felt they had to hide their homosexuality, now it is almost ‘de rigueur’ to conform to a hedonistic gay stereotype.Prejudice and resentment is still thriving though – the would-be ‘queer bashers’ have morphed into Stinson Hunter-style vigilantes, and the long arm of the law supports them just as it turned a blind eye to homophobic nastiness in Alan Turing’s day.
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February 11, 2015 at 4:59 pm -
I was once outed as queer because there were two empty seats on a bus, one next to a boy and one, a girl, and I sat next to the boy [coz I were reet shy]. The big lads at the back began their banter…
Maybe saved me from a serious “touching over clothing” allegation and conviction in the long run, so… Glad to be Gay…
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February 12, 2015 at 9:56 pm -
Excellent reply, Mr Windsock.
I like your style.-
February 13, 2015 at 12:59 pm -
Thank you. It always feels nice to be appreciated.
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February 11, 2015 at 5:44 pm -
Spot on. Blessed are they who whinge, for they shall be (mightily) whinged upon.
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February 11, 2015 at 12:04 pm -
* David Cameron can declare himself a better man than Edward Heath because of his Bloody Sunday apology *
If Cameron had been PM at the time he would have been babbling about terrorists and how the authorities needed more power.
I think this entire matter all falls under the heading of Cant. And those who think it’s a super thing are of a different vowel.
If all the gays are pardoned does that mean I can stop feeling sorry for them? That might be worth a craic.-
February 11, 2015 at 12:09 pm -
*If all the gays are pardoned does that mean I can stop feeling sorry for them?*
Wouldn’t it be really good if we were all allowed to go one better and be allowed to stop thinking about them at all?
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February 11, 2015 at 12:29 pm -
I have mixed feelings about this one. On the one hand, the treatment of Turing – a man who undoubtedly played a major part in saving the lives of hundreds of thousands if not millions of service personnel and civilians by forshortening the War by years – was shabby in the extreme. On the other hand, it irks me that some people couch this is him being, “prosecuted for being gay.” He wasn’t. He was prosecuted for indulging acts that were illegal at the time, but which are not now. I thyink I’m right in saying that Quentin Crisp was never successfully prosecuted for anything, despite being camper than a row of tents. With gay men in them. Sniffing poppers.
It could be noted that under previous legislation, straight couples indulging in anal sex were breaking the law, and some were undoubtedly – albeit rarely – prosecuted for it. Nobody is waving a flag for pardons for them, nor for those prosecuted for attempting their own suicides, or countless other repealed offences, for that matter.
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February 11, 2015 at 12:36 pm -
Odd how we haven’t had a movie about how the Establishment pursued Sir John Gielgud in 1953 by sending cops to the local bogs to catch him inflagrante and then how Express newspapers campaigned for his Knighthood to be rescinded, and how the British public simply laughed at the law, the lawyers and the mean-minded media, and continued to laud a great actor, and in point of fact a theatre audience applauded him when he grit his teeth to appear on a stage for the first time after his grotesque “Outing”.
Nothing speaks louder of the decline in the British mentality that nowadays the rabble would be applauding the lawyers and the law and babbling about justice and how “the law is the law” and Gielgud would probably be banged up under a wave of historical allegations.
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February 11, 2015 at 12:56 pm -
The general consensus that ‘gay is good’ is no guarantee of safety in this climate – just ask Paul Gambaccini – but just look at the difference in sentencing. Ray Teret (and, come the end of the month, Gary Glitter too no doubt) getting roughly double (count for count) the sentence of boy-botherers such as Chris Denning. Which tell us in no uncertain terms what this is primarily about is the erosion of our right under the cloak of “protecting females” – at the end of the day any man can be accused, but the heftier penalties are reserved for men who put their dinkles inside ladies tuppences and not the traditional crime of sodomy.
Bugger(n)ation Street.-
February 11, 2015 at 2:44 pm -
Gambo was a tactic to ensure nobody said, “Worra about the gays!” Once that had been achieved he was let off. He did himself no favours with the PC brigade when he referred to Savile and the Sub-Normals. Lying about Savile was cool, but being off-hand about the disabled was rather terrible. I’ll bet you never hear a peep from him about “Sub-Normals” again.
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February 11, 2015 at 3:15 pm -
“Savile & The Sub-Normals” would have made a cracking name for punk band. Perhaps one based at Cardiff University circa 1979/80?
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February 12, 2015 at 10:03 pm -
Fascinating about Gielgud Moor, I never knew that.
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February 11, 2015 at 12:54 pm -
He wasn’t ‘prosecuted for being gay’, but that’s rather like saying that people aren’t ‘prosecuted for being heroin addicts’. You don’t get sent to jail for being a heroin addict, you get sent to jail for possessing heroin. However, being addicted to heroin and possessing heroin go hand in hand, so it is almost the same thing.
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February 11, 2015 at 3:18 pm -
Wow! You think the urge to have sex is equivalent to heroin addiction?!
Actually, I have this theory about the current peado-panic that pursues even those who cannot be shown to have interfered with any child at all. Nowadays the prevailing attitude is that sex is something people have a right to have at any time they choose, if they can find a willing partner. People don’t go without, and they don’t or can’t wait. In that context, anyone who gets off at lookign at pictures of kids “obviously” has fiddled with them for real in the past, or will in the future, so banging them up on any possible charge is a “good thing.”
Of course, the reality is that millions of people – straight, gay, or any other orientation – can be celibate by choice or circumstances, without being a threat to anyone.
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February 11, 2015 at 4:34 pm -
There was a chap in my young group who seemed totally asexual. He never tried to get it on with the birds or any of us boys. He lived with his widowed mum while the rest of us were desperately trying to fly the coop. I guess he must have been a paedo.
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February 11, 2015 at 6:55 pm -
Agree with Peter. Laws may change, but if you knew you were breaking the law at the time, that is no excuse. In some places you can smoke marijuana legally. In others you can go to prison. Shag a girl of 15 in Calais and you are fine. Shag the same lass in Dover and you are a paedo. Follow the speed limit at all times, no matter how unreasonable it seems to you.
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February 11, 2015 at 8:29 pm -
* Shag a girl of 15 in Calais and you are fine. Shag the same lass in Dover and you are a paedo. *
The 2003 Laws mean that if you are British then you will still be a paedo even if you do do it in Calais. We are now citizens of the United Kingdom of Everywhere and subject to the full rigour of the law.
This whole area of what is law lies at the root of the intrinsically unjust approach to Historical under-age sex according to the law. Male *paedophilia* where it applies to the ages current at the time of the offence is simply declared as not existing. Thus a man could have been knowingly breaking the law by five years in 1976 with a male and he will explicitly NOT be made subject to the complaint. A man breaking the law by five months with a female will be sent to prison. This is unacceptable. Plainly the solution is to implement time cut-off rules but how can any politician do that in the febrile media climate now appertaining in Britain? I strongly suspect however that this entire thing is a Media/Westminster bubble involving just a couple of hundred people and some money-hungry litigation outfits and that political leadership bringing some common sense to bear would be welcomed by not what I would call the Silent Majority, but rather the Silenced Majority.
As to the misuse of the word Paedophilia – well it just goes to show the importance of being earnest about proper education.
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February 11, 2015 at 1:57 pm -
“…homosexual acts between consenting adults in private were decriminalised in Britain eighty-two years later.”
In layman’s terms: ‘Up the bum, no harm done’…
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February 11, 2015 at 3:15 pm -
“the treatment of Turing – – was shabby in the extreme”
About as shabby as the treatment of the real hero of the piece, poor old Tommy Flowers …but not being homosexual I doubt there’ll be a film made about him anytime soon. Turing was a genius but without that humble cockney GPO engineer- the son of a brick layer- all Turing’s fantastic mathematical ability would have remained just that; Fantasy.
From Wiki: “After the war, Flowers was granted £1,000 by the government, payment which did not cover Flowers’ personal investment in the equipment and most of which he shared amongst the staff who helped him build and test Colossus. Ironically, Flowers applied for a loan from the Bank of England to build another machine like Colossus but was denied the loan because the bank did not believe that such a machine could work. He could not argue that he had already designed and built many of these machines because his work on Colossus was covered by the Official Secrets Act.”
So Flowers kept to the law of land,remaining silent when it was clearly unjust and cost him his future (he could have been the 1950s’ Bill Gates). Turing decided to break the, undoubtedly unjust,law of the land and paid the price.
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February 11, 2015 at 3:20 pm -
Oh, sure, but really Flowers’s “problem” was that he was working class, not that he was straight.
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February 11, 2015 at 3:29 pm -
My view on the Alan Turing case is quite simple. If something is illegal, and you know it is illegal, yet you still continue to do it, you are then doing it in full knowledge of its status and the potential consequences of discovery. That’s what Turing did and, in those circumstances, it is inappropriate ever to pardon, apologise or issue any other form of post-dated excuse – it was a knowingly illegal act at the time of its commission. Whatever other talents Turing possessed is irrelevant, he knew he was breaking the law at the time. The fact that gay-law has since changed does not alter those basic facts of the offence.
I’ll confess here confidentially amongst friends that, many decades ago, I had illegal sex with a girl under 16 years of age. I knew it was illegal and was fully aware of those potential consequences, but I ‘got away with it’, as I’m sure many others here did (but hopefully with different girls). But even if I had been apprehended and prosecuted, I would not now be expecting, or campaigning for, any form of pardon because I acknowledge the illegality of that act at the time. For the few gays ever prosecuted, millions of others ‘got away with it’ – that’s legal life.
And as far as posthumous pardons go, what possible benefit can they have to the recipient ? They may make the donor feel good but it’s a complete waste of everyone’s time.
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February 11, 2015 at 3:45 pm -
As recently as 1999 the Dr Who guy was writing “Queer As Folk” about a 15 year old and his 29 year-old man lover and it was the coolest thing since… well… Dr. Who. What do we think the chances are of a Repeat? Slightly greater than a Jimmy Savile programme I suppose.
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February 11, 2015 at 4:01 pm -
Apparently some crusader keeps on re-editing the Wikipedia entry for ‘Rita, Sue & Bob Too’ from ‘a film about two teenaged schoolgirls who have a sexual fling with a married man’ to ‘a film about a predatory paedophile who preys on schoolchildren’. Seriously.
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February 11, 2015 at 4:48 pm -
“I thought I were great!”
Actually, now I think about it, I don’t think it’s even suggested that either Rita or Sue are under 16 in the film.
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February 11, 2015 at 5:26 pm -
That was scheduled on a late slot just as savilisation was really hitting the fan. I can’t recall the channel now. It didn’t get broadcast. permanently in the naughty room now I imagine.
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February 12, 2015 at 1:09 pm -
A good job both writer and director are dead!
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February 11, 2015 at 5:16 pm -
“…As recently as 1999 the Dr Who guy was writing “Queer As Folk” about a 15 year old and his 29 year-old man lover.”
And in 2015, 27 year old Elliot Spencer marries 57 year old Stephen Fry… who is even cooler than Russell T Davies (the Doctor Who geezer), but people are apparently worried about the 30 year age gap, not that it is very odd in the first place of course – two blokes marrying each other.
So long as they don’t make it compulsory for the sexes to only marry within their own respective gender I think I am fine…ish with it, but it does seem deucedly strange, to a man brought up in the ‘It Ain’t Arf Hot Mum’ era.
Now then, lovely boys…
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February 12, 2015 at 1:11 pm -
Mrs Raite is 14 years younger than me, and while luckily she looks older and I look younger than our respective years, it still raises an eyebrow or two occasionally.
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February 11, 2015 at 3:47 pm -
I once got nicked for shoplifting; not a pleasant experience, but I ain’t never done it since. It was a fair cop, guv, because I was knowingly breaking the law. Small potatoes, I know; but if shoplifting is decriminalised in the distant future, I won’t be demanding a pardon. Anyway, it earned me a ban from an awful supermarket chain, so it wasn’t all bad.
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February 11, 2015 at 4:04 pm -
I have been tried for several counts of attempted murder, carrying a concealed, armed robbery, theft and some other stuff. I was an active criminal.
A lot of my crime was drink fueled and I even ‘got away’ with one stabbing because I could prove I was drunk at the time (German Law has a provision of crimes committed under the influence). Yet even drunk I knew I was breaking the law ….so I won’t be demanding a pardon either.
“I fought the law, the law won -but I expect to be pardoned any day now. “
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February 11, 2015 at 5:38 pm -
*I have been tried for several counts of attempted murder, carrying a concealed, armed robbery, theft and some other stuff. I was an active criminal.*
No offence TBD but that is you off my Christmas Party list, and I was just getting to like you too.
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February 11, 2015 at 6:29 pm -
No offence taken. I’ve been ‘dry’ and have been going straight..ish for years now (last drink was about 2007 I think and I gave up on a life of crime 25 years ago when I awoke with the world’s worst hangover in a police cell to the world’s worst cup of coffee and the news I was looking at 2-3 life sentences) but I understand completely why some might prefer not to have me at any kind ‘interacting with other humans’ event…
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February 11, 2015 at 6:48 pm -
Whoa up TBD, attempt at light heartedness, I guess I should have used one of those smiley face things, just can’t get the habit.
I’m thinking my list is one you’d probably find too boring to want to be on!
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February 11, 2015 at 6:58 pm -
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February 11, 2015 at 7:19 pm -
Oh great and with your record you think I’m going to refuse to pay up? (Where do you even get those smiley thingy’s?)
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February 11, 2015 at 7:45 pm -
just type in “: )” for a smiley face NO SPACE between the ‘:’ and ‘)’ – I have to put spaces in otherwise the software would automatically make it a smiley.
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February 11, 2015 at 3:50 pm -
Did the Huns apologise for Attila? Perhaps I missed it.
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February 11, 2015 at 4:01 pm -
My view: a pardon, and an apology would be in order. It can’t bring him back, and won’t make any difference to him, but not only did this man play as great a role in winning WW2 as any other, and probably more, but his treatment was awful, repressive and cruel – as was so much of the treatment of homosexuals at the time. Of course there are problems with “historical” apologies. As pointed out above, the Normans behaved despicably, particularly in the North. Tens of thousands, more, died of starvation when William the Bastard ravaged the land to enforce his rule. Do I demand an apology of my beloved friend Dr. Pesta, of Norman noble stock? No. But I feel the wrong that was done to Mr. Turing was recent, real, and unjust. Of course, it is all subjective.
I merely add this. Churchill said the only thing that frightened him in the war was the U-Boat threat. Turing was essential to beating that threat. I think the nation owes him a great deal.-
February 11, 2015 at 4:08 pm -
Turing’s had his pardon and I don’t recall any huge issue being raised by anyone. “If it makes you happy Mr. Grayling” was my view.
Personally I’d like to see Marine A get a pardon. Be a damned sight more use to him than the dead guy.
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February 11, 2015 at 4:28 pm -
Turing got his pardon . No one cared when he got found guilty and very few of us now wanted him exonerated after so many years . The Gay great and good one presumes wanted the whitewash along with the Thespian fraternity who are cutting edge on everything ” enlightened and progressive ” .
Turing was caught importuning in a Gents toilet and knew it was v risky thing to do . If only he had met Noel Coward who could have pointed him in the right direction . Fortunately King Harold got his comeuppance for his ethnic cleansing of the Welsh while still alive !-
February 11, 2015 at 4:52 pm -
I think you’ll find that there was no “importuning in a Gents toilet” involved. Turing met a young man outside a cinema and they went back to his (Turing’s) place. The latter was subsequently burgled by either the young man or an aquaintance of his. Turing admitted to a sexual relationship with the young man during the police investigation of the burglary.
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February 11, 2015 at 6:40 pm -
“…The latter was subsequently burgled by either the young man or an aquaintance of his.’
It was Turing’s interest in being ‘ bum burgled’ by the young man that is the subject matter at issue. Clearly a different sort of burglary to that which he anticipated when he picked him up outside the cinema…
Personally, I wouldn’t stand for it… or sit or bend over for it either!!
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February 12, 2015 at 1:16 pm -
I don’t think it’s on record whether Turing was a top, bottom, or side. I’ve certainly known (not in the biblical sense) a few gay men who’ve said they’re not into that particular practice either way. It’s not all bums, apparently!
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February 11, 2015 at 4:55 pm -
Maybe rename Mayday as Sorry Day instead…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Sorry_Day
$later & Gordon could sponsor the fireworks… -
February 11, 2015 at 5:04 pm -
The original Petunia had a couple of ‘misunderstandings/mental aberrations’ in the 70s…
Sadly, it more or less ended his TV career.
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February 11, 2015 at 5:09 pm -
Another secret baldybonce too…
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February 11, 2015 at 6:25 pm
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February 11, 2015 at 5:23 pm -
With respect, I think this whole issue is more about cheap publicity for some attention-seekers rather than righting any perceived wrongs.
I fully expect camoron to go along with it.
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February 11, 2015 at 7:43 pm -
Not Long Now and Windsock, are we all friends again? Everyone of any sexual or political persuasion is welcome at this hostelry, as is passionate debate, but I would hate to lose either of you if you can’t bear the thought of sharing the same snug after today’s frank exchange of views. We shall agree to differ, yes? I don’t want to say ‘Time, Gentlemen, please!’
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February 11, 2015 at 7:51 pm -
Dear Petunia: When I’m told “Your problem isn’t being gay, it’s being you.” I take it that the person addressing me does not have any regard or respect for me. I’ll happily hang out in the Racoon Arms and have my say – I know my views will often be challenged – Fat Steve and I had a long exchange once, and my debate with Richard The Biker ended without rancour. But I’m not going to engage with someone who sees me as a “problem”. Whether that means you will serve me is down to you, mine host.
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February 11, 2015 at 7:58 pm -
February 11, 2015 at 8:19 pm -
I would say “kiss and make up”…*ducks and runs*
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February 11, 2015 at 8:29 pm -
And I’d say – look at the title of the post – both of you!
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February 11, 2015 at 8:54 pm -
See? You’ve even disturbed ‘er upstairs now!
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February 11, 2015 at 9:26 pm -
Well, I tried banging on the floor with my trusty stick and you wuz making so much noise you didn’t hear me.
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February 11, 2015 at 10:53 pm -
Peeetunia! PETUNIA!! Will nobody hied ze Kries off an Old Voman!? René !
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February 12, 2015 at 7:34 am -
Well, it is riffing on an Elton John song, so it would be deliciously appropriate.
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February 11, 2015 at 9:20 pm -
Once a philosopher; twice a pervert; three times a Fabian:
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February 11, 2015 at 10:36 pm -
Many things change over time and as humans we gain new insights and what may be acceptable last century may be unacceptable this century
Politicians who hang around public toilets and are fined in Bow street magistrates can be seen in many ways, one is a man looking for some quick gratification, another is a dirty pervert looking for sex in a communal space stinking of urine. Many will make a moral judgement would you want such a person as head of your country or in care of your children. Others may take a more psychological approach and pose questions is this gratification or a form of punishment. Others may ask would he be a threat to younger people. What I am saying is that we all hold differing views on the matter and these are influenced by our environment, education, social conditioning and these change over time. There are some moral basics that underpin most societies and with some exceptions the sexual abuse of children is a social taboo. Looking at the exceptions we usually find the society is deviant from 99% of societies .The fact that say William Hague or Tony Blair could make apologies over the treatment of gays in this country, begs the question that are they making apologies for everyone or for their own communities or society? Making apologies is not the same as gaining acceptance by all off society and I suspect gay people would rather have acceptance by all rather than a few platitudes from our political masters.
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February 11, 2015 at 11:01 pm -
Perversion is inhibited by nature, by the principle of spontaneous evolutionary norms; since if it is ‘wrong’, it will not continue to the next generation; therefore, by a logical tautology, spontaneous evolution can only proceed through normality.
It takes breeding, non-spontaneous selection, to generate perversion by design. And a society that selects its own definition of ‘natural’, through synthetic law, will pervert itself.
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February 12, 2015 at 12:23 am -
I know enough from my family history research to be sure that, at a personal level, if I am to settle the account for all my antecedents I should be giving and receiving apologies, often in respect of the same histrorical injustice, for some considerable time.
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February 12, 2015 at 3:48 am -
is not all this gay glorification a way of adding to the feminist war machine and enabling them to smash the patriarchy.Plus transexuals etc.
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February 12, 2015 at 1:20 pm -
Actually it seems that really ardent feminists aren’t too keen on gay men, reckoning that their lack of interest in the female form is the ultimate expression of misogyny!
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February 12, 2015 at 1:27 pm -
There’s also not keen on transwomen, either, regarding them as “male infiltrators,” whereas they’re not bothered by transmen, seeing them as still sharing (initially) the inherent suffering of being women.
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February 23, 2015 at 9:12 am -
Gotta love how they are happy to now apologise for laws that were written in the same exact piece of legislation – and by the very same man-hating harridans – whose other laws they are now happily herding heterosexual men to the gallows with.
Good to know exactly where you are in the pecking order of society, isn’t it? (At last look: Hetero men, somewhere below the trannies).
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