Dealing with Deviates

Almost every session of Parliament in the past decade has hotly debated the controversial recommendations of a government commission that came out in favor of relaxing the laws against homosexuality. When the suggestions were first introduced as legislation, the outcry was so shrill that the bill was overwhelmingly defeated, amid cries that the whole idea was "scandalous," "filthy" and "bestial." But in ten years, the mood in Parliament -- and in the country -- has changed. Last week the House of Commons passed the bill over token opposition, and it will soon go on the statute books.

To be sure, the measure does not spell total license for deviates. It permits male homosexual relations in private between consenting adults. But there has been no relaxation of penalties for indecent acts committed in public, and offenses against youths under 21 are dealt with more harshly than before. What the bill does, says Laborite Sponsor Leo Abse, is remove the"brutal choice" that offered the would-be law-abiding homo "either celibacy or criminality, and nothing in between."

The bill's proponents argued that the old bans were unenforceable, that fewer than 100 homosexuals were convicted each year for acts behind closed doors (the number of homosexuals in Britain has been estimated to be as high as 1,000,000, or one out of every 23 males). Some pointed to a double standard in the fact that Lesbians may do as they like -- free of any regulation by the law. Others contended that male deviates, living otherwise respectable lives, are liable to blackmail and are often driven to suicide because of the criminal stigma. Abse also pointed out that "to send homosexuals to overcrowded, hermetically sealed male prisons is as therapeutically useless as incarcerating a sex maniac in a harem."

In passing the bill, Britain moved far beyond the pattern in the U.S., where only Illinois has legalized private acts. All major European countries except West Germany have eased restrictions on homosexuals. Most Britons seemed relieved that the matter was finally settled. As the London Daily Telegraph later reported, the House was glad to get "this confounded measure out of the way at last."

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