The UK government has announced that it
will posthumously pardon thousands of gay and bisexual men convicted
of sexual offenses which have since been abolished in England and
Wales.
Living men will also be eligible for a
pardon under the proposal.
The law is dubbed the “Turing Law”
after Alan Turing, the World War II codebreaker who was the subject
of the 2014 film The Imitation Game. Despite his heroic
service to the war effort, Turing was subjected to chemical
castration after he acknowledged to officials that was gay. He
committed suicide in 1954. Nearly sixty years after his death, Queen
Elizabeth II posthumously pardoned Turing in 2013.
Turing's pardon led many to ask about
the other thousands of men who were subjected to a similar fate.
Gay sex was decriminalized for men aged
over 21 in England and Wales in 1967. Scotland and Northern Ireland
changed their laws in 1980 and 1982, respectively.
In a statement, Justice Minister Sam
Gylmah said that under the new law the government will pardon living
men convicted of sexual crimes that are no longer on the books.