UK Offers Posthumous Pardons for Queer “Gross Indecency”
The UK Ministry of Justice announced Thursday that thousands of men convicted under anti-queer sexual offense laws will be pardoned posthumously.
While anyone living can currently have their names cleared through a disregard process if they were convicted under a now-defunct law, the amendment that has been dubbed “Turing law” will formerly pardon the 65,000 men convicted under anti-queer “gross indecency” laws.
According to Lord Sharkey, who proposed the amendment to the Policing and Crime Bill, 15,000 of those men are still living. Not all, however, want a pardon.
George Montague, who spoke to the BBC, was convicted in 1974 of gross indecency with another man. He believes that accepting a pardon is an admission of guilt, and that he – and the thousands of other men – deserve an apology instead.
“To accept a pardon means you accept that you were guilty. I was not guilty of anything. I was only guilty of being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he said during his BBC Newsnight interview.
Montague also disagrees with the Royal pardon for Alan Turing, the WWII codebreaker who committed suicide after being convicted of gross indecency with a man and chemically castrated.
“What was he guilty of?” Montague asked.
“He was guilty of the same as what they called me guilty of – being born only able to fall in love with another man.”
Turing was pardoned in 2013 after years of petitions from his family, activists, and members of the British government.
The new policy will only take place in England and Wales; Scotland and Northern Ireland are not covered by the Justice Department. Activist groups have met with the Scottish and Northern Irish governments to discuss similar measures.
A blanket measure has also been proposed by MPs in Parliament, which does not have support of the government. Justice Minister Sam Gyimah criticized the loopholes that may be made possible through the bill.
“I understand and support the intentions behind Mr. Nicolson’s Bill, however I worry that he has not fully thought through the consequences. A blanket pardon, without the detailed investigations carried out by the Home Office under the disregard process, could see people guilty of an offence which is still a crime today claiming to be pardoned,” he said.
