tangents

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by dal mcintire

On June 29, after heated debate, the British House of Commons rejected, 213 to 99, a motion of Mr. Kenneth Robinson (Labor) to enact the Wolfenden recommendations for relaxing the law regarding private, adult homosexual acts. The debate featured sharp exchange between Mr. Robinson, who strongly criticized the present unfair legal penalties imposed on homosexuals, and Dr. Alfred Broughton, a psychiatrist and also a Labor MP, who denied that there was any real public pressure to reform the law, insinuating instead that a homosexual minority was behind the outcry. Broughton also felt that a change in the law would lead to "bullies and seducers in positions of authority" making "homosexual demands on their subordinates."

Mr. Robinson countered the government's claim that, though the reform in the law is needed, the public is not ready for such a change, by urging that the government lead, rather than follow, public opinion. He said that out of 70 letters he had received on the subject, only 3 opposed the changeone from a man who advocated compulsory castration of homosexuals and offered his good services.

The motion was not made a party issue. Voting for the reform were

73 Labor Members, 22 Conservatives, and the 4 Liberals present. 171 Conservatives and 41 Laborites voted against. Spokesmen for the Conservatives, including Mr. R. A. Butler, expressed sympathy for the intentions of the Wolfenden Committee, and predicted that such a reform would come in a few more years. Mr. Deedes (Con.) said that homosexuals cannot continue indefinitely to be treated as a criminal class, though he had formerly thought such a change in the law to be unthinkable, but insisted that first many problems need to be clearly thought through regarding the social consequences of such legislation.

Mr. Godfrey Lagden (Con.) drew loud catcalls from Dr. Edith Summerskill (Lab.) and others when he said that "the general run of the homosexual is a dirty-minded danger to the virile manhood of the country." He predicted that if the law were changed there would be signs posted outside everyone's house advertising "homosexual experience can be had within."

Mrs. Eirene White (Lab.) called for a more objective treatment of the subject, and said that "On this subject, many men are moved to vehement condemnation by feeling that they have to assert their own. virility."

Mr. Butler insisted that those working for this reform must base their efforts firmly on an acknowledgement that homosexuality is unnatural, undesirable, etc. He described several research projects being carried out with Home Office support, including studies by Gordon Westwood. He placed considerable hope in three lines of study, one involving research on family, social, educational and occupational backgrounds of homosexuals, another studying homosexual