



Feb
19
Dear Readers,
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Stephen Fry notified me a week ago of the following petition. Please join us in signing, if you will:
Alan Turing was the greatest computer scientist ever born in Britain. In one stroke he defined the criteria by which the Nazis’ “impossible†Enigma code could be broken and laid the foundations of modern computing. He was a hero.
He was also gay. He was prosecuted for it, punished with chemical castration and took his own life, aged 41. In 2013 the British Government rightly pardoned Turing. But Turing was not the only man convicted for being gay under the laws of “gross indecencyâ€. These were pernicious, cruel laws that fortunately don’t exist now but whose shadow still looms over too many.
More than 49,000 men were convicted under these and similar laws. Their lives were destroyed. They suffered humiliation, violence and total estrangement from their families which in some cases also led to suicide.
That is why I’m lending my support to calls for Her Majesty’s Government to pardon all the men, alive or deceased, who, like Alan Turing, were convicted under ‘anti-gay’ laws.
Please join me by signing this petition.
The Imitation Game film has brought Alan Turing’s story to cinemas around the globe. But what about all of the men whose stories will never be heard? They also deserve their names to be cleared.
The UK’s homophobic laws made the lives of generations of gay and bisexual men intolerable. It’s time we acknowledge this mark on our history and correct it. Take a moment to sign the petition here.
Thank you,
Stephen Fry
 UPDATE: Nick Clegg MP has responded:  Alan Turing and the thousands of other men should never have been prosecuted. It is utterly wrong that so many people were convicted simply for being who they are.  The Liberal Democrats and I will work to make sure those with convictions for consensual homosexual activity between adults are pardoned. It should never have been a crime in the first place.  Nick |
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