10 ms·
House of Lords debates pardon for Alan Turing
- tome 13y agoShouldn't all people punished under criminalization of homosexuality be retrospectively pardoned?
- Uhhrrr 13y agoEspecially if the House of Lords is deciding the issue!
- jacobwcarlson 13y agoThe idea is that by not changing bad decisions made in the past, those mistakes aren't forgotten or brushed under the rug.
- jlgreco 13y agoIs it really credible that giving a pardon to all those persecuted under homosexuality laws would make us forget our shameful past? That does not seem credible to me, that just seems like a haphazard excuse.
- corin_ 13y agoIf anything I would have thought it does that opposite, as anyone who hears about the pardon is just reminded of the terrible things that happened.
- DanBC 13y agoThis is possibly why Turing isn't pardoned - it'll open the doors for all the (living) homosexuals who were convicted to make compensation claims.
- Recoil42 13y agoAnd they should be able to do exactly that.
- autodidakto 13y agoAnd the fact that haven't means it isn't about justice after all.
- tarice 13y agoListening to the video, I believe one of the lords mentioned they had done just that - pardon all the people convicted by that law who were still alive today. I'll try to find a news reference. The question, now, is whether to posthumously pardon the others. Update: Found an article. Turns out they haven't been pardoned, but their convictions are now "disregarded" and no longer appear on their criminal record[1]. [1] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/historic-convictions-for-consensual-acts-to-be-deleted https://www.gov.uk/government/news/historic-convictions-for-...
- DanBC 13y agoThank you! I wasn't aware of this. It would be good if they went further and pardoned people.
- taybin 13y agoThey should pardon all the people convicted under that law. Not just the famous, useful ones.
- mindstab 13y agoI believe they plan to, and that is what is being debated, they are just using Alan Turing as the most famous example of an deceased person that should be pardoned.
- corin_ 13y agoWhy not do it all in a single bill? They could still make him a figure head, even name the bill after him and include a specific point about pardoning him, but include everyone else too. If this ends up getting through all the stages and they then want to do the same for everyone else, at the very least it's a waste of time going through the stages again (if there's no more debate), or if there is still debate then even more time wasted. The only reason not to include it in this bill, if that is their long-term plan, is if they think it is more likely to pass with just one name, which seems odd to me.
- stickydink 13y agoThat's exactly what they're doing. A bill that would pardon 75,000 men, including 16,000 who are still alive. It would be named the "Alan Turing Bill".
- corin_ 13y agoIt's not what they're doing yet, the current bill is specific to one person.
- priteau 13y agoThe 16,000 alive can apply for pardon, but it's most likely not automatic, I guess their case must be reviewed. The government didn't want to allow pardon to the dead because they said that in some cases they couldn't know that these homosexual acts were consensual and not under age. The Lord presenting the bill is advocating for rehabilitation of the dead if there is enough evidence available, and he hopes the Turing bill (which will pardon only Alan Turing) is a first step towards allowing pardon for the 59,000 convicted who are now dead.
- MereInterest 13y agoIf I remember correctly, the last time this came up, they gave a good reason for not pardoning him. They knew that he was innocent, and that the government of the time had wronged him. Still, they refused to give a pardon. Not because they agreed with the actions against Turing, but because they felt that pardoning him would be an attempt to cover up their mistreatment of him. They refused to pardon him, because it was their shame to know how wrongly they had acted, and they would not hide that shame.
- dyno12345 13y agohttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16919012 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16919012 The explanation given was that the law was wrong, not that he hadn't broken it so as to have a pardon, and you can't posthumously commute a sentence
- ealexhudson 13y agoI agree to some extent - it's not for the Lords to pardon Turing, but the other way around - but that's really a matter of semantics in a sense. Perhaps there ought to be an equivalent "pardon" set up called "beg forgiveness".
- thejsjunky 13y ago> not that he hadn't broken it so as to have a pardon Reasoning I find confusing. A pardon is by definition something given to people convicted of breaking the law. It can be and is sometimes used as a relief for people who have been -wrongly- convicted if there is no other mechanism (or just because it's easier), but that's not implied or required. Is this some difference between US and UK law?
- estel 13y agoThe argument would be that he wasn't wrongly convicted. By modern standards it's obviously a stupid, unjust and immoral law that he was convicted under; but if he was correctly found guilty under the laws of the time, then it was a sound conviction.
- anuragramdasan 13y agoThe 16,000 alive have to apply to get pardoned?
- eeky 13y agoLike the majority of people, I oppose gay marriage. But what the British government did with chemical castration to Alan Turing and others is absolutely reprehensible - and they should pardon all of them. Let's not conflate these issues please.
- rmc 13y ago> Like the majority of people, I oppose gay marriage. That is factually incorrect. The majority of the population support marriage equality.
- TylerE 13y agoDepends on how you define population. If I were to gamble on it, I would expect a (rather high) margin in opposition, with support rates highly correlated to education levels.
- dllthomas 13y agoMajority of which population?
- eeky 13y agoMajority of people - so the world population.
- dllthomas 13y agoYeah, I understood that's what you were talking about, from other comments - I was wondering which rmc was speaking of. As to world population, I'm not sure you're correct (but also not at all sure you're incorrect). Yes, Russia and much of Africa and certainly the Middle East can be assumed to be majority opposed, but I'm not sure about Asian countries and that's a lot of people. Much of the west is obviously trending against you.
- eeky 13y ago
- rmc 13y agoIf it was wrong to prosecute Alan Turing for being gay, and right to pardon him, then they should pardon every other gay man convicted of homosexual acts.
- dllthomas 13y ago... if the only problem with the acts in question was that they were homosexual.
- jlgreco 13y agoIf they were convicted of both 'homosexual acts' and robbing a bank at the same time, then just pardon them of the 'homosexual acts'. Unrelated crimes are unrelated.
- dllthomas 13y agoThat's conviction for two separate acts, which is a different thing than, say, acts which are homosexual and also forcible or pedophillic or something. Note that I most explicitly don't mean to imply that these attributes are any more common of homosexual behavior than heterosexual, just that they can be attributes of the same act, and may even have been punished under the same statute.
- jlgreco 13y agoSo you are hypothesizing that they neglected to prosecute child molesters of child molestation, and instead prosecuted them merely for 'homosexual acts'? That may be the case, but I find it unlikely. Are there any specific examples? Frankly though, as plainly unfortunate as those situations may be, those people should still be pardoned. When the prosecution fucks up, bad people can be declared not guilty. Same principle here. It is a risk we accept in the system.
- dllthomas 13y agoMy understanding (which could totally be wrong) is that the charge is "gross indecency," not specifically labeled "homosexual acts." If it was the latter, some attention might still be merited but I agree I'd rather err on the side of caution (in terms of meting out punishment improperly).
- rmc 13y agoIf it was wrong to prosecute Alan Turing for being gay, and right to pardon him, then they should pardon every other gay man convicted of homosexual acts.
- awj 13y agoPardoning him explicitly seems ridiculous. Either pardon everyone as a statement that you find the law abhorrent or don't pardon anyone and allow the shame to guide further decisions. Pardoning the popular examples just hides what you did, it doesn't acknowledge fault or error.
- Eva_Peron 13y agoIt's about bloody time.
- ansimionescu 13y agoWTF?! Debate?! What is there to debate?? This is why I(/we) hate most politicians.
- corin_ 13y agoPoliticians are far from the only people who aren't pro-gay rights, feel free to hate the specific people for their opinions, but seems a bit pointless to hate politicians in general for having the same mixture of views as the general public.
- racl101 13y agoGuess who put the politicians there in the 1st place?
- estel 13y agoAll bills require multiple hearings and debates in both houses of Parliament. Why should this bill be any different?
- pinchyfingers 13y agoThe bigger issue here is that people look to governments and religions for pardons, permission and other validation. People that see some kind of meaning in empty gestures like a posthumous pardon (after shaming and chemically castrating the man) are grossly mislead. Buying into the hype of government is what gives governments the power to commit senseless crimes like what was done to Alan Turing and many, many crimes that are much worse. The correct answer to "should the UK government pardon Alan Turing?" is "fuck off". I view the gay marriage issue in the same light. I have gay friends that care deeply about marriage equality, but as much as I love them and they are my friends, I simply cannot sympathize. My answer to them is: "Live your life, do want you want to do, don't ask the government or anyone else for permission". If worried about my status as defined by the U.S. government and the fairness I can expect from U.S. government, I would just kill myself now. Thankfully I realize that government is just another scam for me to avoid to the best of my ability.
- commandar 13y ago> "Live your life, do want you want to do, don't ask the government or anyone else for permission" That's what Turing was trying to do. It resulted in: >shaming and chemically castrating the man >If worried about my status as defined by the [UK] government and the fairness I can expect from [UK] government, I would just kill myself now. The issue goes a bit deeper than superficial validation.
- thurn 13y agoYou can live your life the way you want right up to the point where you want to visit your husband in the hospital or inherit the estate of your dead wife. Then these legal things start to matter.
- dnskw 13y ago>inherit the estate of your dead wife A well written will would solve that issue.
- nostromo 13y agoNobody is asking for permission. We are asking for equal protection under the law. There are dozens of boring issues that are bundled with this issue. For me, repeal of DOMA means that if I got hit by a bus tomorrow, my husband would be able to continue to live in our home and not have to sell it to pay taxes on his "windfall".
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- ericevans 13y agoThey shouldn't "pardon". If there were some other form of nullification, that might be ok, but did nothing wrong by modern standards, and "forgiving" him implies that he did, even if that isn't their intent. And any legal relief a pardon would give a living person is irrelevant. Let the conviction stand as a historical marker of shame. Instead, they should vote on an apology to him and all the other people wronged by the actions of their predecessors.
- dragonwriter 13y ago> but did nothing wrong by modern standards, and "forgiving" him implies that he did One of the purposes of the pardon power is to nullify convictions where a law was broken but the conviction, justified as it might be by the law, was unjust in the specific context. Now, its designed (on the premise that the law is always just in the general case) to deal with exceptional cases, but it is no less appropriate a vehicle for the case where the law failed to be just in general and thus any conviction under the law is unjust in its specific context.