Just Broke: Turing Given Royal Pardon!

[ChillDoubt]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25495315

Not before time!

[lady-janine]

apologies child. i had not seen your thread. only just turned the radio on.

[Sqad]

Kromo...maybe! maybe!

[Kromovaracun]

"I'm a "straight" and wish today's male homosexuals would return our word "gay" back to us and shut-up"

Sorry, but you don't own the language. Nobody does.T

he word 'gay' had a connotation for 'happy' for a time during the 1950s, but it wasn't always so, and has a long history of sexual connotations. In the C17/18, it was common to refer to a 'gay woman' as a prostitute and a 'gay man' as a womanizer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay

" could go on about certain of their clique who practice dirty acts but I do not wish to broaden this topic. "

It's not really any of your business what consenting adults do.

[RATTER15]

Totally agree with Mikey and like Canary said, it is practised more by straight people these days although few will admit to it.

[emmie]

WR, Stephen Fry made a very good documentary on homosexuality, gays and how they are treated in other parts of the world. He travelled around a good deal to gauge opinions from many of those in governments. One being an African country which for the moment the name escapes me, however the chap he went to speak with was a high ranking minister, who's views on gays was so antiquated and vile. Stephens comments on the fact that most homosexuals, and one would think he knows, do not by and large practice anal sex, but oral and other methods to please their partner. It was an informative documentary, not least for showing that many in the world, the great and the good or bad have such absurd notions on homosexuality.

[Zacs-Master]

It would seem that 'the establishment' are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

[mccfluff]

great news

[Ken4155]

Awards made so posthumously - almost 60 years after his suicide - are simply not worth the effort. As an earlier post said, his surviving relatives will think no more and no less of him because of it.

[mikey4444]

Anal sex is the concern of the two people involved but shouldn't be of the remotest interest or business to anyone else. It doesn't matter whether the participants are gay or straight. It doesn't concern me and it shouldn't concern anybody else either. Turing wasn't dragging small boys into the bushes...he engaged in a private act with another, completely willing adult. He was no Jimmy Savile, thats for sure. But due to his conviction, he was no longer allowed to continue his vital work in the intelligence sector, and Britain lost one of its greatest intellectual minds.He was only 42 when he died. Until very recently he was vilified, instead of being praised for his great work during WW2. Churchill once described the work of Bletchley Park as having shortened the war by a year, and Turing was an important part of that work.

I have just heard Baroness Trumpington being interviewed by Humphrys. She worked along side Turing. She is a very formidable lady indeed and can never be described as anybodys fool. She was delighted with the decision to give Turing a pardon.

Thousands of men were enthusiastically prosecuted by the Police, as well as being set up by them in the first place. Perhaps the Police should have been out catching thieves and other criminals, instead of persecuting men, whose only "crime" was their sexuality.

But perhaps things haven't changed that much, even now, when we have Policemen sitting with their thumbs up their ar*es, trying to work out the best way to fit up Cabinet Ministers.

[Sqad]

mikey....;-)

[emmie]

mikey, laws are in place to protect homosexuals from persecution, that they are persecuted, killed, injured in other parts of the world says much about the lack of democracy in those countries.

[mikey4444]

Good Morning Sqad, or perhaps Good Xmas Eve ! Hope the weather is better for you in the Med than it is here in Blighty.

I speak my mind, as you know. Its not always popular but I think it is right to be honest. I have never found sitting on the fence to be in any way comfortable....you just run the danger of getting splinters up your ar*e.

[ChillDoubt]

Not a problem LJ......done it myself often enough!

[youngmafbog]

Absolutely pointless (Nothing against Turing, he was a brilliant man)

But it appeases the right-on and the gay community at not cost so why not?

It should now of course be extended to all prosecuted under that law and anyone prosecuted under any law now repealed. I await the rather long list with anticipation ....

[mikey4444]

emmie...civilisation will come to everywhere in the world eventually, although, sadly, not terribly soon it would seem. Something that I always found strange is that the places in the world where religion is strongest, also coincides with the places where persecution of innocent people is most enthusiastically practised.

[naomi24]

The word ‘pardon’ implies forgiveness for misdemeanours and in a case such as this is an insult. An abject apology for the state’s utter stupidity would have been more appropriate.

[emmie]

some may never have told their families they were homosexual and been in prison or worse, so those names could be released - i don't think it's a good idea to do that.

[emmie]

mikey, no it won't, has it in millions of years, ?
we cannot promote our ideas of fair play, democracy on others, what they believe you may not, and it's no good thinking that we are all alike, think alike, because as we see with our own country, it's not the case.

[ChillDoubt]

Naomi,
I believe Gordon Brown did just that in 2009.

[ChillDoubt]

Indeed he did:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/gordon-brown/6170112/Gordon-Brown-Im-proud-to-say-sorry-to-a-real-war-hero.html