#wolfenden report

[mattlyon]

The Colour of His Hair OST

I decided to make use of the pattern design from my film poster to create a record sleeve cover

[c86]

Huntley & Palmers

[ntulgbthist]

Wolfenden Report

This report was published on the 4th September 1957, it recommended that ‘homosexual behaviour between consenting adults in private should no longer be a criminal offence’. It had been appointed to consider the law and practice relating to homosexual offences and the treatment of persons convicted of such offences by the courts. It also and had been appointed to look at the law and practice relating to offences against the criminal law in connection with prostitution and solicitation for immoral purposes, and to report what changes, if any, are desirable.

Source: Jeffrey Weeks, Coming Out: the emergence of LGBT identities in Britain from the nineteenth century to the present (Quartet Books: London: 2016), p. 164.

[1967comingout]

Wolfenden Report summary of recommendations on male homosexuality sourced from http://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item107413.html

[theemptybloggercometh]

There is no doubting the importance the people lead by Marsha Johnson at the Stonewall Riots in bringing the gay rights movement to prominence. While giving those people their due we mustn’t forget what had happened before. Indeed in Britain sex between men had been decriminalised nearly two years previously (there was never a law against two women having sex). ‘It was largely hidden work’ (1) and the high profile prosecution of people like Alan Turing (2) that led the Conservative Government in 1954 to set up the Wolfenden Committee. It was a group of seventeen, thirteen of them men, and looks like a gathering of the British establishment including two judges, a Foreign Office official, a Conservative MP, a consulting psychiatrist and a Regius professor of moral theology at Oxford (3). Its recommendations, published in 1957, didn’t argue that sex between men was moral but reasoned that as these acts happened in private they weren’t any concern of the law. This ‘philosophical basis proved to be enormously important in sex law reform in the United States’ (4) such as in Lawrence v. Texas; the decision of which now means that ‘states are now severely restricted in criminalizing private, consensual sexual activity by adults’ (5). Furthermore contrary to the suggestions presented by psychologists the committee refused to classify homosexuality as a mental illness (6). Some in the LGBTQA community don’t like to acknowledge the role of the allies, the nonviolent, the quite, the men, the educated, the famous, or the British Conservative Party in helping fight against oppression but I think that we must recognise their part in laying the foundations for LGBTQA people openly fighting for our rights.

1: Jim Cotter’s forward in Singing for Our Lives: Positively Gay and Christian by Michael Sean Paterson

2: http://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item 107413.html

3. http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/wolfenden_report.html

4: http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/wolfenden_report,2.html

5: http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_laws6.htm

6:  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1962139/?page=1

[poniatowskaja]

One only has to look back into history to find that it was the condoning of this sort of offence which led to the downfall of the Roman Empire. I feel that it was the condoning of these offences which led to the fall of Nazi Germany. [Laughter.] Yes, that is perfectly true.

James Dance, Conservative MP, in 1958 during a debate on the findings of the Wolfenden Report (which recommended delegalising homosexual activity, at that time illegal in the UK), displaying his ignorance. (source: The Hansard)

[gaynewsephemera]

EXTRA INFO: The Wolfenden Committee Report

September 4, 1957: "A report sponsored by the government has suggested homosexual behaviour between consenting adults should no longer be a criminal offence." That was the Wolfenden Committee Report! It was published in September of 1957 and only discussed in the House of Commons a year and change later, on November 26, 1958. A transcript of the discussion is available online, but it's pretty dry and goes nowhere. Except for a few funny turns of phrase, the highlights are covered by the January 59 issue of ONE Magazine. Example: "If we were drawing up a code for the first colonists of the moon, should we make this kind of offence a criminal offence?" It would've been nice if the discussion had remained on space sodomy, but some Tory shithead spoke up to blame the fall of the Third Reich on "the condoning of these offences." ONE Magazine says that "a socialist member pointed to Sir Winston [Churchill] and suggested that he'd had something to do with that last," but this episode is absent from the transcript, so it must have been non-verbal. ONE Magazine notes that a few days before the discussion, "there was a big flap when Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs Ian Douglas Harvey and a 19-year-old Coldstream Guardsman, Anthony Walter Plant, were arrested for alleged 'act of gross indecency' in St. James Park. Both pleaded guilty and were fined." The BBC clarifies that they were initially charged with "gross indecency and breaching the park's regulations," but the gross indecency charge was dropped. They pleaded guilty to and were fined £5 for the breach of the park's regulations. Wikipedia sez Ian Harvey was gentleman enough to cover the Coldstream Guardsman's fine as well as his own. Wikipedia attributes the formation of the committee itself to similar cases involving other high-profile men, specifically Lord Montagu, Michael Pitt-Rivers and Peter Wildeblood, who were all charged for a weekend of "abandoned behavior" at a beach house with a couple of RAF servicemen. Sounds fun. The committee was also charged with evaluating laws on prostitution, and while their report helped to liberalize attitudes towards homosexuality, it also provoked a crackdown on sex workers. The committee included three women, and apparently these men were hilariously unused to discussing things like this in "mixed company": "Wolfenden suggested at an early stage that for the sake of the ladies in the room, that they use the terms Huntley & Palmers after the biscuit manufacturers – Huntleys for homosexuals, and Palmers for prostitutes."