Wolfenden Shelved

In British Parliament

In London on November 26, the House of Commons debated the principal issues of the widely-discussed Wolfenden Report, in which it has been recommended that the laws prohibiting consenting sexual acts between adults in private be discarded. The result: No action yet. "Pub lic opinion is not yet ready for a change of law," the British legisla tors declared.

British newspapers covered the event, but the giant headlines proclaiming homosexuality a "vice" were missing. The press, it seems,

is becoming accustomed to the subject, and with so much of it in print for the past two years, homosexuality is beginning to wear thin as a source of sensationalism.

The special correspondent of the DAILY TELEGRAPH, writing from the parliamentary halls of Westminster, covered the day's discussion as well as anyone. So significant is the report that we have decided to publish it here in full. This is exactly what appeared in that London newspaper on the morning of November 27, 1958:

No Action on Homosexuals Yet: Mr.

Butler Sets. Out the Problems

BY OUR OWN REPRESENTATIVE

WESTMINSTER, Wednesday

After twelve months' public consideration of the Wolfenden report, the House of Commons tonight debated the proposals it contains for dealing with homosexuality and prostitution.

Nr conclusion was arrived at apart from an agreement to take note of " the report on a Government motion. Without announcing any decision on proposed changes in the law, Mr. Butler, Home Secretary, said the Government wanted to be fortified by the opinion of the House.

He hinted that legi-lation now in preparation would include higher penalties for men who lived on the immoral earnings of women, but

would not include new provisions affecting homosexuality.

Mr. BUTLER opened the debate by moving: "That this House takes note of the report of the Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution."

It was a little over a year, he re-

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called, since the report was received

but he did not think the interval had been useful.

It had since been widely read and had stimulated discussion and thought on topics which people so far had been tempted to ignore. It was not altogether easy to consider both parts of the report in one debate. The two parts had not much to do with one another.

It was important at the outset to make it clear that questions of theology and morals were outside the committee's terms of reference. The House's main concern would be is decide whether recommendations on changes in the law were to be accepted.

He reminded Members that Parliament had a dual function. It was partly deliberative and partly a legislative assembly.

THE PERENNIAL DILEMMA

CONTROL BY LAW

The subject considered by. the Committee had raised in a most acute form one of the perennial dilemmas of organised society. That was how far the law should seek to regulate the behaviour of individuals.

He thought all would agree there was a sphere in which the conduct of individuals must be controlled by the sanctions of the law, both in their own interests and the interests of others, and in the interests of society at large.

It would equally be agreed there was a sphere which it was proper to leave to the dictates of the individual's conscience. "I mean the individual's conscience as fortified by the teachings of religion and the generally accepted standards of the society in which we live."

3-FOLD FUNCTION Protecting Citizens

He thought dispute arose, in defining the limits of those two spheres. In the Committee's view the function of the law regarding sexual behaviour was three-fold:

1. To preserve public order and decency.

2. To protect the citizen. from what was offensive and injurious. 3.--To provide sufficient safeguard against exploitation and corruption.

"I personally do not have any dimculty in assenting to the first, that the law should be framed or held as it is so as to preserve public order and decency. I should have thought

that there is general agreement that the law should provide safeguards against exploitation and corruption.' ANCIENT PROBLEM What Is Injurious?

On the second function he thought there was the greatest difficulty. The House would have to make up its mind in the debate

"This raises the issue. what is offensive, and what is injurious. What kinds of conduct. in the words of the Committee. are so contrary to the public good that the law ought to intervene.'

"Is homosexual conduct between consenting adults in private injurious to society, or is it a matter-entirely for the private conscience of the parties concerned? These questions have been with us since the beginning of time in every nation."

In Ancient Greece, at times, this practice was accepted and even admired. In other societies, including those permeated by the Christian ethic, it had been abhorred as an unmentionable evil and visited with the severest penalties.

In this country the extreme form of homosexual conduct had been condemned by criminal law for over 400 years and in lesser forms for the last 70 years.

SIN AND CRIME RESPONSIBILITY OF

THE INDIVIDUAL

The Committee had drawn a sharp and valid distinction between sin and crime. Applying the definition of the criminal law, they concluded that while private homosexual conduct between consenting adults might be a sin, and was commonly so regarded. it ought not to be a crime.

Their view argued that to carry the criminal law beyond its proper sphere was to undermine the moral responsibility of the individual. The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Church Assembly, by a majority, had emphasised the importance of maintaining the fundamental right of man to decide on his own moral code even to his own hurt.

PREVENTING HARM Duty to Society

"In a free society there are few things more important than to sustain the sense of individual responsibility. But this argument can be .accepted as a reason for leaving homosexual conduct to the private conscience only if one is convinced