I've been posting for the better part of a year on the outrageous criminalization of LGBT citizens in places such as Uganda and Tanzania, places most in the West regard as at best exotic and certainly as psychically distant. Now, the British government, people we imagine we know well, joins nations we rightly regard as to law and human rights, as barbaric. It's hardly a status to be envied.
In 1952, London convicted the ground-breaking and renowned British mathematician/philosopher, Alan Turing, of what the court called gross indecency. A seminal pioneer in computer science and artificial intelligence, Dr. Turing was born one hundred years ago this month. At age 40, he was convicted for being a homosexual.
Though Breathing-While-Gay is not an illegal act in contemporary Great Britain, the current London government has this week denied to Professor Turing a posthumous pardon, a pardon sought by thousands of scientists and others world-wide in an e-mail petition. The Associated Press reports, stunningly, that the Justice Ministry offers this too-cute-by-far rationale for denying the pardon.
Brace yourself:
The British position is that that Professor Turing surely knew, when he was arrested and convicted, that he was a homosexual. As such, says the Justice Ministry, Dr. Turing consciously broke the law and and simply had no reason not to expect the worst.
Let that sink in a moment.
(I have friends whose relatives knew they were Jews when the S.S. came to town, too.)
Dr. Turing did get the last word two years after his trial. Bullied, arrested, and convicted by his own people for living out just who he was, he committed suicide, eating a cyanide-laced apple.
A blackly ironic tip of his hat to Sir Isaac's more famous apple?
Alan Turing was 42.
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Rated/Bud
My guess is that the British government didn't want to take any chances and used this as a pretext to remove him, rather than risk an intelligence problem.
The sad thing is that if Britain was more tolerant, this sort of blackmail and/or extortion wouldn't work.
I wonder how the young monarch thinks about it,being the son of a liberal mother.It will take another few years,and when he is in office,he might be able to change the law.
A friend of mine told me that his family had objected to his father's choice to marry a Jewish lady.
Snobism is a word I closely connect with the British Empire.
And it is snobism that causes this strange attitude,condemning people to become outcasts.(criminals)
-R-
Rather, he was a classic British eccentric, and genius, whose work in computability is the fundamental basis of modern computer science.
He still has his honor, as the Turing machine model of what any computer can be is still in every textbook.
He was also by the way an outstanding distance runner and free-soloist (no ropes) climber, and did the Allies great service in the war in his work in decoding.
information.Homosexuality came in handy as aliby for strategies in dark, secret chambers.
I honestly feel sorry for this genius who was driven into suicide by his own people.
I am fascinated by the fact that this man was the pioneer of modern computer technology.
~ Rick Santorum
"A posthumous pardon was not considered appropriate as Alan Turing was properly convicted of what at the time was a criminal offence."
~ British Justice Minister Lord McNally
There's not much difference between those two views, IMO.
rated with love
Sorry about the poorly structured sentences. I'm time crunching. There's a write-up on the PBS site re the matter Procopious posted for discussion.
♥
I say this with this in mind: A civilized society cannot exist until and when the people no longer require courts of law, police, or locks on doors to prevent theft, harm or loss. When people can allow others to be who and what they are and not cause harm to others, living consciously and conscientiously aware not only of their right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but also to the idea that with these ideals comes an inherent responsibility to live an exemplary life out of a true desire to set an example of behavior for our children to emulate.
To lie would be a thing of the past and the idea of purposely, savagely harming another person -- or even an animal without cause -- would be abhorrent.
Until such a time as this exists in our world, there is not now, nor has there ever been anything called civilization in our recorded history. So in the meantime, we must verbally, principally and ethically carry out the ideological warfare against the savagery and brutality of those who think that might makes right and that to admit error is more a sin than to commit the error in the first place.
--r--
@Heidi - Prince William is not our reigning monarch and will not be until Queen Elizabeth, and then Prince Charles die. British monarchy have no say or influence over British law and have not for quite some time now. Either way, the Royal family are actually quite liberal as a whole.
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Seriously though, it's a very sad story, and a great, senseless loss to humanity.
By the way, why the concern about the posthumous pardon? It would be akin to seeking a pardon in the US for someone convicted of harboring a runaway slave. I'd want the conviction to remain on the record as a reminder of what Mr. Turing faced when he was alive. What surprises me is the official rationale for denying the pardon. Your SS analogy is on the mark.