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The Man Who Made the UK Say “I’m Sorry for What We Did to Turing.”

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Re: The Man Who Made the UK Say “I’m Sorry for What We Did to Turing.”

#51

Post by philwelch »

Sorgam wrote: post #49
jgrahamc wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are rather different cases. Casement was tried and convicted of treason for trying, during World War I, to get Germany to support an uprising in Ireland against Great Britain. It's true that his alleged homosexuality didn't help his case.

Considering Ireland (except Northern Ireland) is now widely accepted to be independent of Britain, doesn't that mean any "treason" supporting that should also seen as acceptable, and Casement should be pardoned from his treason conviction? To maintain it, implies that Ireland really shouldn't be independent, and that anyone still supporting it is also guilty.

It's only treason until you live long enough to see your side win.

Re: The Man Who Made the UK Say “I’m Sorry for What We Did to Turing.”

#52

Post by Sorgam »

philwelch wrote: post #51
Sorgam wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering Ireland (except Northern Ireland) is now widely accepted to be independent of Britain, doesn't that mean any "treason" supporting that should also seen as acceptable, and Casement should be pardoned from his treason conviction? To maintain it, implies that Ireland really shouldn't be independent, and that anyone still supporting it is also guilty.

It's only treason until you live long enough to see your side win.

It sounds silly, but that's how it really is. Treason is often a crime with the harshest punishments, yet also one that's most unclear if it's very bad or very good. Somehow it doesn't seem to get the attention it deserves as immoral law.

Re: The Man Who Made the UK Say “I’m Sorry for What We Did to Turing.”

#53

Post by nl »

rmc wrote: post #18

(Disclaimer: I'm an openly gay man working in technology). A part of me dislikes how Alan Turing was given a pardon and apology. It's like they said it was wrong to persecute a gay man for being gay, but only if you help invent the computer and help defeat the Nazis. What about all the other gay men persecuted under the same law? Why do they not get a pardon/apology? Do we have to help stop evil genocidal dictators b…

Initially I agreed with what you say here.

After some thought, one aspect came up that I'd be interested in your views about:

It's like they said it was wrong to persecute a gay man for being gay, but only if you help invent the computer and help defeat the Nazis. What about all the other gay men persecuted under the same law?

What you say here is so obviously right that is is difficult to argue with. Maybe pardoning Turing is a necessary first step to see that everyone deserves similar treatment?

(Non-gay, white male. Not sure it matters in this response.)

Re: The Man Who Made the UK Say “I’m Sorry for What We Did to Turing.”

#54

Post by PhasmaFelis »

Sorgam wrote: post #48

This is absolutely not an apology. Anyone can apologize when their culture tells them some action was wrong. Whether it's persecuting homosexuals, jews, blacks, or whatever. But the fact is British law still persecutes minorities, for example incest is still illegal and people are in prison today for committing that offense. Of course most people agree that it's "wrong" or "immoral" or "sick" - just like they did wit…

I assume we're talking about incest between consenting adults here. I still think it's pretty fucked up, generally speaking (I really don't think you can have an equal power relationship between a parent and a child, even if the child is an adult), but I have to grudgingly admit that it probably shouldn't be criminal.

(I'm going to regret saying anything here, aren't I?)

Re: The Man Who Made the UK Say “I’m Sorry for What We Did to Turing.”

#55

Post by PhasmaFelis »

barking wrote: post #31
vixen99 wrote: post #25

"I'm sorry for what we did to Turing". On the other hand, if you don't happen to be a genius, tough! The countless, ordinary blokes in the street who happened to be homosexuals and were prosecuted in the 1950s and earlier can go hang as with the millions of others who with hindsight suffered unfairly at the hands of various laws of the land in past centuries. However it seems to me that for people alive today to apol…

Of course it is and it assumes that we are also superior to those that came before us and had different morals.

Well, that's only because non-bigots are superior to bigots, all other things being equal.

Re: The Man Who Made the UK Say “I’m Sorry for What We Did to Turing.”

#56

Post by barking »

vertex-four wrote: post #45
barking wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you name anyone who fits this category?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Wildeblood Have one who was prosecuted simply for gay sex. According to the organisation Stonewall, there's thousands more - although obviously, there's not going to be a pre-made list somewhere, you'd have to go over court records.

OK, thanks. I'd suggest that this was quite an unusual example. It seems that his lover must have made a complaint to the police.

Re: The Man Who Made the UK Say “I’m Sorry for What We Did to Turing.”

#57

Post by vertex-four »

barking wrote: post #56
vertex-four wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Wildeblood Have one who was prosecuted simply for gay sex. According to the organisation Stonewall, there's thousands more - although obviously, there's not going to be a pre-made list somewhere, you'd have to go over court records.

OK, thanks. I'd suggest that this was quite an unusual example. It seems that his lover must have made a complaint to the police.

"In the early 1950s, the police actively enforced laws prohibiting sexual behaviour between men. By the end of 1954, there were 1,069 gay men in prison in England and Wales, with an average age of 37."

"1952 - Sir John Nott-Bower, commissioner of Scotland Yard began to weed out homosexuals from the British Government at the same time as McCarthy was conducting a federal homosexual witch hunt in the US. During the early 50's as many as 1,000 men were locked up in Britain's prisons every year amid a widespread police clampdown on homosexual offences. Undercover officers acting as 'agents provocateurs' would pose as gay men soliciting in public places. The prevailing mood was one of barely concealed paranoia."

It's a well-documented thing. Claiming that the targeted harassment and prosecution of the LGBT community never happened is a very dangerous form of denial. You can find anecdotal stories all over the Internet, and in modern media including mass market films. This is the entire reason we have gay pride. I'll see if I can find a book on the subject.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-20522465 - "It was something that gays had to go through in those days. If you were gay you were in trouble with the police."

Re: The Man Who Made the UK Say “I’m Sorry for What We Did to Turing.”

#58

Post by DanBC »

barking wrote: post #56
vertex-four wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Wildeblood Have one who was prosecuted simply for gay sex. According to the organisation Stonewall, there's thousands more - although obviously, there's not going to be a pre-made list somewhere, you'd have to go over court records.

OK, thanks. I'd suggest that this was quite an unusual example. It seems that his lover must have made a complaint to the police.

You seem to be saying that men were not prosecuted merely for being gay men or just for having consensual sex with other adult men in private, and that the men must have been having sex with children[1] or in public.

Thousands of men each year were arrested and locked up. Police were acting as agent provocateurs (thus entrapping these men) so obviously many of those prosecutions involve sexual activity in public -- where that's defined as "being approached by a police officer acting as a gay man and having a conversation with that officer".

You appear to be applying stricter standards of conduct to gay men than to heterosexual people. We can see very many convictions of gay men for gross indecency in public. But this definition of "public" included (until the year 2000) anywhere where a third person may be present - two adult men in one of their homes would have been having sex in public if one of those homes was rented lodgings; this was an additional restriction on gay sex that heterosexual couples didn't face. This extra restriction was included in law in 1968, and overturned in 2000.

Finally, around younger people: laws for heterosexuals had the age of female consent at 16 for heterosexual sex. But for gay men the age of consent was 21. Thus a 25 year old man having sex with a 16 year old woman was fine, but a 25 year old man having sex with a 20 year old man would be arrested and imprisoned.

[1] children need to be protected from sexual predators. Suggesting that gay men are more likely to be sexual predators is not supported by any evidence and is a homophobic slur that needs to end.

Re: The Man Who Made the UK Say “I’m Sorry for What We Did to Turing.”

#59

Post by rmc »

parenthesis wrote: post #23
rmc wrote: post #18

(Disclaimer: I'm an openly gay man working in technology). A part of me dislikes how Alan Turing was given a pardon and apology. It's like they said it was wrong to persecute a gay man for being gay, but only if you help invent the computer and help defeat the Nazis. What about all the other gay men persecuted under the same law? Why do they not get a pardon/apology? Do we have to help stop evil genocidal dictators b…

As a Scot born in the late 70s (I mention my vintage as the early 80s probably seems ridiculously long ago to younger people here), I was somewhat shocked to discover that whilst male homosexual acts were decriminalised (to an extent) in 1967 in England and Wales, this did not occur in Scotland until 1980 or in Northern Ireland until 1982. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_Offences_Act_1967

Northern Ireland is a special case with many of these laws. Even now, abortion is very illegal in Northern Ireland.

Re: The Man Who Made the UK Say “I’m Sorry for What We Did to Turing.”

#60

Post by rjblackman »

packetized wrote: post #13

I knew virtually nothing about Turing until reading Neal Stephenson's 'Cryptonomicon' around 15 years ago. I wonder how many people actually learned about him (and some aspects of his life, despite the novel being alternate/historical fiction) for the first time in this way.

i did. they never taught it at the computing history unit I took in University though.... hmmm
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