Gay rights in the United Kingdom

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Contents 1 1950s 2 1960s 3 1970s 4 1980s 5 1990s 6 2000s 7 Gay life in country 8 Notes 9 References 10 See also 11 External links

[edit] 1950s

In the early 1950s, the police were actively enforcing the laws affecting homosexual men (some say this was a result of Central Intelligence Agency pressure following the Burgess–Maclean spy scandal).^{[citation needed]} This led to a number of high-profile arrests and trials.

In particular, in 1953, Michael Pitt-Rivers and Peter Wildeblood were arrested and charged with having committed specific acts of indecency with Edward McNally and John Reynolds; they were also accused of conspiring with Edward Montagu (the 3rd Baron Montagu of Beaulieu) to commit these offences. The Director of Public Prosecutions gave his assurance that Reynolds and McNally would not be prosecuted in any circumstances. The trial of Edward Montagu, Michael Pitt-Rivers and Peter Wildeblood began on 15 March 1954 in the hall of Winchester Castle. All three defendants were convicted.

The Sunday Times published an article entitled "Law and Hypocrisy" on 28 March 1954 that dealt with this trial and its outcome. Soon after, on 10 April 1954, the New Statesman printed an article called "The Police and the Montagu Case". A month after the Montagu trial the Home Secretary agreed to appoint a committee to examine and report on the law covering homosexual offences. The official announcement in the House of Commons was made on 18 April 1954 by Sir Hugh Lucas-Tooth. In August 1954, the Home Office appointed a departmental committee of 15 men and women "to consider… the law and practice relating to homosexual offences and the treatment of persons convicted of such offences by the courts."

The Report of the Departmental Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution (better known as the Wolfenden Report) was published on 3 September 1957 and recommended that "homosexual behavior between consenting adults in private should no longer be a criminal offence", finding that "homosexuality cannot legitimately be regarded as a disease, because in many cases it is the only symptom and is compatible with full mental health in other respects."

In October 1957, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Geoffrey Fisher, spoke in support of the Wolfenden Report, saying that "There is a sacred realm of privacy… into which the law, generally speaking, must not intrude. This is a principle of the utmost importance for the preservation of human freedom, self-respect, and responsibility."

The first parliamentary debate on the Wolfenden Report was initiated on 4 December 1957 by Frank Pakenham. Of the seventeen peers who spoke in the debate, eight broadly supported the recommendations in the Wolfenden Report. The Lord Chancellor, Lord Kilmuir, speaking for the government, doubted that there would be much public support for implementing the recommendations and stated that further research was required.

In 1958, the Home Office asked sociologist Richard Hauser to survey homosexuality in Great Britain. One suggestion that arose from Hauser's work was that "the poor quality of the normal relationships between men and women in… society is responsible for much avoidable homosexuality". The Homosexual Law Reform Society was founded on 12 May 1958, mainly to campaign for the implementation of the Wolfenden Committee's recommendations.

[edit] 1960s

In 1965, in the House of Lords, Lord Arran proposed the decriminalization of homosexual acts. In 1966, Humphry Berkeley MP proposed the same in the House of Commons; he ascribed his defeat in the 1966 general election to the unpopularity of this action. However, in the new Parliament, the maverick Labour MP Leo Abse took up the issue and used his mastery of Parliamentary tactics to ensure that the Bill progressed.

After almost ten years of intense campaigning, the Sexual Offences Bill was put before parliament in 1967 in order to implement some of the Wolfenden Committee's recommendations. Lord Arran, a sponsor of the Bill, made the following remarks at the third reading in the Lords:

Because, of the Bill now to be enacted, perhaps a million human beings will be able to live in greater peace. I find this an awesome and marvellous thing. The late Oscar Wilde, on his release from Reading Gaol, wrote to a friend:

"Yes, we shall win in the end; but the road will be long and red with monstrous martyrdoms."

My Lords, Mr. Wilde was right: the road has been long and the martyrdoms many, monstrous and bloody. Today, please God! sees the end of that road. I ask one thing and I ask it earnestly. I ask those who have, as it were, been in bondage and for whom the prison doors are now open to show their thanks by comporting themselves quietly and with dignity. This is no occasion for jubilation; certainly not for celebration. Any form of ostentatious behaviour; now or in the future any form of public flaunting, would be utterly distasteful and would, I believe, make the sponsors of the Bill regret that they have done what they have done. Homosexuals must continue to remember that while there may be nothing bad in being a homosexual, there is certainly nothing good. Lest the opponents of the Bill think that a new freedom, a new privileged class, has been created, let me remind them that no amount of legislation will prevent homosexuals from being the subject of dislike and derision, or at best of pity. We shall always, I fear, resent the odd man out. That is their burden for all time, and they must shoulder it like men - for men they are.

The Sexual Offences Act 1967 was passed, decriminalizing certain homosexual activities between adults but established a higher age of consent for homosexuals (21 at the time) and "in private" was interpreted strictly by the courts, being taken to exclude acts taking place in a room in a hotel, for example, and in private homes where a third person was present — even where that person was in a different room. However, the 1967 Act did not extend to Scotland and Northern Ireland where all homosexual activities remained illegal. Campaigning was therefore continued by organizations such as the Campaign for Homosexual Equality and the Gay Liberation Front with the aim of attaining full equality.

[edit] 1970s

In 1979, the Home Office Policy Advisory Committee's Working Party report Age of Consent in relation to Sexual Offences recommended that the age of consent for homosexual activities should be 18.

Legislation was introduced to legalise homosexual activities in Scotland on the same terms as England and Wales. The legislation was eventually enacted in 1980.

[edit] 1980s

The 1980s saw both expansions and restrictions of gay rights in the UK. Northern Ireland's law against homosexual activities was amended in 1982. However, the 1988 passage of Section 28 forbade "promotion of homosexuality" by any local authority and "the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship".

[edit] 1990s

In February 1994, Conservative MP Edwina Currie tabled an amendment to the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill to equalise the age of consent at 16. Many Labour MPs supported the amendment, including Tony Blair, who said:

"People are entitled to think that homosexuality is wrong, but they are not entitled to use the criminal law to force that view upon others... A society that has learned, over time, racial and sexual equality can surely come to terms with equality of sexuality."

Edwina Currie's amendment was defeated by 307 votes to 280. Those who voted for it included John Smith and Neil Kinnock, Paddy Ashdown and William Hague. Those voting against included David Blunkett and Ann Taylor.

This vote was followed immediately by one on Sir Anthony Durant's amendment to lower the age of consent to 18. This was passed by 427 votes to 162, and supporters included Michael Howard and John Major. It was opposed by such MPs as John Redwood, Michael Heseltine and John Gummer. An amendment tabled by Simon Hughes which was intended to equalise the age of consent for homosexuals and heterosexuals at 17 was not voted upon. The Bill as a whole was given a second reading in the Lords by 290 votes to 247. Lord Longford then sought to reintroduce 21 as the minimum age in the Lords, but this was defeated by 176 votes to 113. An amendment by the deputy Labour leader in the House of Lords, Lord MacIntosh of Haringey, that would have equalised the age of consent at 16, was rejected by 245 votes to 71.

In its decision of 1 July 1997 in the case of Sutherland v. the United Kingdom, the European Commission of Human Rights found that Articles 8 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights were violated by a discriminatory age of consent, on the ground that there was no objective and reasonable justification for maintaining a higher minimum age for male homosexual acts. On 13 October 1997, the Government submitted to the European Court of Human Rights that it would in the summer of 1998 propose a Bill to Parliament for a reduction of the age of consent for homosexual acts from 18 to 16.

In June 1998, the Crime and Disorder Bill was put before Parliament. Ann Keen proposed amendments that would lower the age of consent to 16. The House of Commons accepted these provisions with a majority of 207, but they were rejected by the House of Lords with a majority of 168. Subsequently, a Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill was introduced on 16 December 1998 and, again, the equalisation of the age of consent was endorsed on 25 January 1999 by the House of Commons, but was rejected on 14 April 1999 by the House of Lords.

Those campaigning against the amendment said they were simply acting to protect children. Baroness Young, the leader of the campaign against the amendment, said "Homosexual practices carry great health risks to young people."

The government reintroduced the Bill in 1999 and threatened to use the Parliament Act to enact it regardless of the opinion of the Lords. The Lords rejected the bill again in November 2000. The Speaker of the House of Commons invoked the Parliament Act on Thursday 30 November 2000; the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000 received Royal Assent a few hours later.

[edit] 2000s

On 18 November 2004, the Civil Partnership Act 2004 was enacted, allowing same-sex couples enter into a civil union with all the rights of full marriage. The first civil partnership ceremony under the Civil Partnership Act 2004 is thought to have taken place at 11:00 (GMT) on the 5 December 2005 between Matthew Roche and Christopher Cramp at St Barnabas Hospice, Worthing, West Sussex.^[1] The usual 14 day waiting period was waived as Roche was suffering from a terminal illness. He died the next day.^[2] Despite this bold step, several gay rights groups including OutRage! and The Queer Youth Alliance in the United Kingdom have objected to the failure of the legislation to allow for same-sex marriage. Some activists such as Peter Tatchell have gone as far to say that a separate system of partnership rights 'just for same sex couples' could be compared to a form of Apartheid. Other LGBT groups, however, have not made this a key campaign issue.

Other developments during this period included the equalisation of the age of consent at 16 in 2001, and in 2003 the introduction of workplace protection from discrimination as well as the repeal of section 28, the repeal of discriminatory sexual offences laws, the setting up of the Commission for Equality and Human Rights to cover all equality strands and the agreement to introduce protection in the field of goods, facilities and services from October 2006. This period also saw the introduction of rules allowing same sex adoption for England and Wales with separate legislation passed for Scotland^[3].

Other initiatives have included action by government departments such as the setting up of the Sexual Orientation and Gender Advisory Group within the Department of Health, the coming into force in 2005 of a measure passed in 2003 ensuring that a court has to treat as an aggravating feature for sentence, hostility based on sexual orientation, guidance from the Crown Prosecution Service, a policy statement from the CPS on dealing with homophobic crime and a commitment form the government to work for LGBT rights at an international level ^[4]

[edit] Gay life in country

A Eurobarometer survey published in December 2006 showed that 46% of Britons surveyed support same-sex marriage and 33% recognise the right of same-sex couples to adopt, close to the EU-wide average of 44% and 33%). [1]

[edit] Notes

1. ^ First civil union in the United Kingdom
2. ^ Partner of first civil union in the United Kingdom dies
3. ^ Section 31 of the Adoption and Children (Scotland) Bill, passed by the Scottish Parliament on 7 December 2006
4. ^ PROMOTING LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL AND TRANSGENDER RIGHTS OVERSEAS (06/02/06)

[edit] References

• Sutherland v. United Kingdom - 25186/94 [2001] ECHR 234 (27 March 2001)
• DTI Women and Equality

[edit] See also

• Civil partnerships in the United Kingdom
• Same-sex marriage in the United Kingdom
• Section 28
• Gender Recognition Act 2004
• Gay Liberation Front
• Hall-Carpenter archives
• Human rights in the United Kingdom
• Category:LGBT Scotland

[edit] External links

• Database of Britain's openly gay and lesbian politicians