Fifty-five years after his death, and following a Downing Street petition, Alan Turing has received a heartfelt posthumous apology from Gordon Brown. Turing was a code-breaker at Bletchley Park during the Second World War, instrumental in cracking messages from German Enigma machines. He is also widely considered the father of modern computing.
In 1954, aged 41, Turing took his own life with cyanide after being sentenced to chemical castration for being gay. Two years earlier, he had been convicted of “gross indecency” with another man — essentially, in the pre-Wolfenden Report era, just for being homosexual.
The petition was signed by well-known figures including Ian McEwan, Richard Dawkins and the human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell. Tatchell, head of OutRage!, commends the Prime Minister but also calls for an apology to the “estimated 100,000 British men who were also convicted of consenting, victimless same-sex relationships during the 20th century”.
In Downing Street’s lengthy statement, the Prime Minister called Turing’s treatment appalling:
Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time and we can’t put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted as he was convicted under homophobic laws were treated terribly. Over the years millions more lived in fear of conviction.
I am proud that those days are gone and that in the last 12 years this government has done so much to make life fairer and more equal for our LGBT community. This recognition of Alan’s status as one of Britain’s most famous victims of homophobia is another step towards equality and long overdue.
As much as being a long-overdue tribute to Turing’s genius and recognition of his persecution, it is also a reminder of how much Labour has done for LGBT Britain since 1997 — and the stark contrast with Labour’s Tory predecessors. Thatcher’s government, let’s not forget, introduced Section 28 in schools in 1988 and continually resisted lowering the age of consent for gay men (a campaign latterly spearheaded by the bitterly prejudiced Janet Young). Since 1997, Labour has repealed Section 28, lowered the age of consent first from 21 to 18, and then again to 16, and legalised civil partnerships.
The new face of the Conservatives is of a caring, sharing, gay-friendly party, which boasts its own LGBTory group, and where Mayor Boris joins the Pride march in London. But how much have beliefs at the Conservative grass roots really changed? It’s unlikely that a Tory government would, for example, reintroduce a version of Section 28, but with a widely predicted Tory election victory in the offing it remains to be seen whether David Cameron will be able to keep the less tolerant elements of his party in check. With the religious right also in the ascendant, gay rights campaigners shouldn’t let their guard down just yet.