The history of the persecution of gay men in the UK
From Henry VIII times to the modern day, gays, bisexuals and men who have sex with men have all been subjected to bigotry. Gay marriage has become legalised in my home country, a huge victory for our liberal times. However as the far-right continues its journey through to the mainstream media, will the fight for LGBT equality go back several steps?
In 1533, under the law of Henry VIII, the Buggery Act was introduced into legislation. This criminalised the act of sodomy between two men and between man and woman, punishable by death. According to the new law:
‘ he offenders being hereof convicted by verdict confession or outlawry shall suffer such pains of death and losses and penalties…’
This was the first time, with the inclusion of the massive stigma involved that had existed since the Roman era, that homosexual relationships were prohibited officially by parliament and deemed similar to “zoophilia”. The law remained intact, with the exception of a few monarchs, until homosexuality’s decriminalisation in 1967 by Labour PM Harold Wilson.
Any man caught having sexual relations were hanged and considered sexually insane. After the extension of parliament in 1541, Henry VIII and his aides said the law on sodomy should remain forever. No-one during this period labelled themselves as gay or bisexual, with the terms not in existence at this point, but their feelings towards members of the same sex were unavoidable.
A underground gay subculture, a dating/community “black market” as such, formed amongst closeted men. Famously, a woman in London’s Holborn district known as “Mother Clap”, born Margaret Clap, opened a renowned “molly house” in 1724. The derogatory term “molly” was used to demean men who had sex with men, with the effeminate link a mockery on a man’s masculinity. However, it was also used within the gay communities to differentiate gay and straight men. The so-called “molly house” became a centre for all gay men to socialise and meet people similar to them. Lots of them became lovers, and Clap provided beds for people to sleep together during the night. Although Clap’s “molly house” became a mecca for the gay community, it was under surveillance from the police and raided several times during its two-year tenure. Death was still a popular punishment for men caught in a compromising position, and 3 regular visitors of the “molly house” (Gabriel Lawrence, William Griffith and Thomas Wright) were outed and hanged by the local law under the Buggery Act’s terms. The last two men to be executed for homosexual acts in the UK were James Pratt and John Smith, who were caught and arrested in Southwark in 1865.
The arrest and subsequent imprisonment of gay men continued until the 20th century, with two prominent cultural figures being subjects to this. World-renowned playwright, Oscar Wilde, a man so famous for his creative literature, was subject to inhumane penal labour for homosexual acts. His affair with Lord Alfred Douglas was exposed and he suffered chronic hunger and illness during his time incarcerated. Wilde suffered a fall in prison and ruptured his ear, which led to his untimely death in 1900. Although openly gay, he married and had children with a woman named Constance Lloyd, but later lost his parental rights under law and was exiled in Paris after his release. It is hideous to even a imagine, a man so popular in the literary world, encountered treacherous prison time just for being himself. His voice suppressed, his image tarnished, during a time that gay sex was considered an almighty sin.
Secondly, the famous code breaker and computerist, Alan Turing, became victim of the UK’s anti-gay laws during his time uncovering the Enigma code. Instead of imprisonment, Turing instead chose to be chemically castrated so he could finish work. A traumatic experience to go through, the bravery of Turing should be considered heroic to many. Turing died by probable suicide from cyanide poisoning in 1954, just short of a few weeks from his 42nd birthday. He suffered appalling treatment which ultimately led to his death under the Labouchere Amendment of 1885, which saw “gross indecency” criminalised by law. The backlash against his homosexuality has seen former British PM, Gordon Brown, apologise for the mistreatment of Turing, and our current monarch grant him a posthumous pardon. Moreover, in 2017, the Alan Turing Law (under the Policing and Crime Act 2017) saw over 50,000 men be pardoned for previous convictions of outlawed homosexuality.
The inherently barbaric outlawing of gay men was finally overturned in 1967. This was preceded by the Wolfenden report of 1957, where the Departmental Committee of Homosexual Offences and Prostitution formally discussed male-to-male relationships. They agreed on a consensus that consensual sex between two men in the privacy of their own homes should be lawful. Around this time, a string of high-profiled men were convicted of gay sex crimes, which saw the committee coming together, although long overdue. Prior to this, social reformer and activist, Jeremy Bentham, wrote an essay which was published for the first time in 1931, stating that homosexuality was not unnatural and just an ‘irregularity in the venereal appetite’, therefore forming the first open argument in support of gay rights.
Finally, in 1967, the government acted on the arguments pro-gay rights, and overturned the law which decriminalised homosexuality. This enabled men to come together in consensual relationships, and live openly in their homes as gay men. What followed was a wave of progressiveness which saw the Civil Partnership Act of 2004 under the Blair premiership, which legalised same-sex unions equal to civil marriages. Then the ruling of same-sex marriage was announced under the Conservatives in 2014, where homosexual relationships were given exactly the same marital rights as heterosexual couples. Now in the UK, gay men can adopt, openly serve in the military and live knowing the law will protect them from any kind of discrimination. We have come a long way, and in 2009 a poll saw 90% of British citizens say they supported the illegality of discrimination against sexual orientation.
Although the UK has come far and wide, there is still a stigma although somewhat less of one. Today, former Top Gear host Richard Hammond, in a interview with The Times newspaper, said:
“It may be because I live in a hideously safe and contained middle-class world, where a person’s sexuality is not an issue. But when I hear of people in the media coming out, I think, why do they even feel the need to mention it? ‘It is so old-fashioned to make a big deal of it. That isn’t even an interesting thing to say at a dinner party any more.”
What Hammond got wrong is that, we now live in a country where coming out is considered acceptable and where people can feel comfortable in their own skin. Staying silent will take us back to days before ’67, where men were forced to remain silent in fear of the law. We have to remember, that 70 countries across the globe are nowhere near LGBT liberation, and still imprison or execute men who are intimately involved with members of the same sex. Inappropriate comments are made, and gay men are still socially targeted at times for being themselves. What we do know is, however large the threat of right-wing extremism is, we must continue to speak out to avoid another period of discretion and anti-gay rhetoric.
