Gay Pride in the Summer of Love

Britain’s equivalent of Pravda, the BBC, mouthpiece of the ruling politically correct class, has recently been enjoying a field day celebrating the 50th anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexual relations between men over 21. It was, of course, right to pass this legislation in 1967 to end such a grotesque intrusion into the personal life of British citizens. But although the target has changed, the invasion of privacy by the state into individuals personal sexual relations and behaviour continues, this time with the ideological fervour of self styled ‘progressives’, employing ever widening concepts of ‘abuse’ and ‘vulnerability’ to enforce their political agenda. This post examines how parliamentarians of the mid 1960s viewed the issue of homosexuality and whether there are any comparisons with today’s crusades against forbidden sex.

The sponsor of the private member’s bill which decriminalised adult male homosexual activity was the Labour MP Leo Abse. He reminded MPs that it was a decade since the Wolfenden Committee has recommended the abolition of this offence. He estimated the number of homosexual men to be about 750,000 and pointed out that ‘the law gives them a brutal choice. It offers them either celibacy or criminality, and nothing in between.’ He revealed one surprising statistic, that the number of convictions of adult men who commit homosexual acts in private was about 100 a year, thus ‘there was a 30,000-to-one chance of an illicit act leading to a conviction’ (his maths are a little shaky but his point is still valid).

He continued ‘therefore, we have an unenforceable Act, and it would require a massive recruitment of police and an invasion of privacy which all of us would find quite intolerable before the law could begin to be enforced. It is bad law because it is unenforceable law, and it is bad law because it is utterly random in its application.’ This criticism would apply to many laws today, not only those involving sexual relations, but also illegal drug possession, most notably cannabis. But there is no debate over whether such an invasion of privacy would ever reach the stage of becoming ‘intolerable’, or any concerns about randomness, although of course it still remains the case that laws of this kind, because of the sheer numbers involved, largely remain unenforceable.

Mr Abse drew attention to the effect of the law to ‘stigmatise thousands of our citizens as being outlaws and pariahs, large numbers of people who, apart from this particular aberration, are totally law-abiding.’ He pinpointed a concern of many MPs that there is ‘a dastardly effect of the present law which cannot be under-estimated. It is the fact that blackmail is the ambience which wraps itself around the existing law.’ Some MPs questioned whether blackmailers would disappear given the general abhorrence of homosexuality in wider society at that time, and the wish of many homosexuals to keep their behaviour a secret from their families. Others believed than men who were being blackmailed would now be able to go to the police without the fear of being prosecuted themselves.

The climate of the time was wholly hostile to the practice of homosexuality as demonstrated by Mr Abse’s belief that society ‘should focus on the question of how we can, if it is possible, reduce the number of faulty males in the community. How can we diminish the number of those who grow up to have men's bodies but feminine souls?’ There are shades here of the current transgender debate, but the message is clear from his speech that he considered homosexuality to be an aberration against traditional ideas of masculinity, and that more needed to be done to encourage correct notions of manhood in the raising of boys. Mr Abse concluded that the ‘continuance of the existing law fosters the illusion that solely by punishment we can prevent homosexuality. In my view, the passage of this Bill would free society from much of its morbid preoccupation with punishment. It could release its energies to the more constructive task of fostering family relations in which children can grow up certain of their identity and confident of their own role’. The current agenda for the undermining and confusing of sexual identity, through the promotion of ‘transgenderism’ in children, which dangerously gives encouragement to the delusional belief that the sex they were born into can be changed, was still a long way in the future.

One Conservative MP raised the often asked question ‘we have been told by many people that homosexuals are born. Surely the removal of the deterrent in the form of punishment, such as imprisonment, cannot cause more of them to be born. The reason is, in my view, that the majority of homosexuals are made and not born’. There was a widespread fear at the time, by those opposed to decriminalisation, that this measure would release a pent up desire by many men to engage in homosexual practices. In fact all the evidence since decriminalisation suggests that homosexuals are born not made, although a small minority of heterosexual men may engage in short lived youthful experimentation. As one MP put it ‘there is a hidden assumption among some of the opponents of the Bill that homosexuality is inherently very attractive and more enjoyable than normal sexual relations. They seem to think that once the present law is abolished a lot of previously law-abiding heterosexuals will shout "hurrah" and become homosexuals.’

Some MPs feared there might be some unintended consequences to changing the law, one observing that ‘I think it is worth considering the side effects of the Bill. We should, I presume, get a succession of plays on television and on the stage on the subject. We should get more books on it. We should get more clubs. I believe that the vice would be looked upon as a normal and natural part of our daily life, and all checks would be gone.’ His concerns about this development would in time be realised in full as the gay pride bandwagon rolled ever onwards with the enthusiastic support of the emerging politically correct establishment.

Another Conservative MP, a future cabinet minister, in support of the legislation observed that ‘the present law seems to have almost everything possible wrong with it. It is unjust, unenforceable, hypocritical, illogical and an invitation to further crime. It is unjust because it singles out, quite arbitrarily a particular set of people for their particular habits. It is unenforceable because there are too many of these people to enable the law to be enforced. It is hypocritical because everyone knows homosexuals and everyone knows that there are homosexuals in all walks of life. The law is illogical because it treats male homosexuality as more damaging to the social fabric or the nation's bloodstream than female homosexuality or adultery, as though it is uniquely anti-social.’ This summarised the conflict between the private behaviour of individuals and the collective values of wider society. It raised the question to what extent should the law invade the sphere of private life to police the concerns, often exaggerated, of those with a moralistic, ideological, scaremongering or controlling agenda on appropriate sexual expression.

This fear of a backlash by wider society was voiced by a Tory MP opposing the change in these terms ‘the trouble is that the law is accepted by the community, rightly or wrongly, as representing the moral standards and the strength of the social fabric. This House cannot right a wrong just by changing the law. It has to consider the psychological implications on society of this House coming forward, as the public will see it and saying that we are giving our blessing to sexual licence, and to a practice which you regard as abominable.’ With the arrival of gay pride as a pillar of the politically correct establishment, anyone rash enough to denounce the practice of homosexuality today as ‘abominable’ would be immediately branded ‘homophobic’, and could risk having his collar felt by the police for a ‘hate crime’. Society has moved from one form of state repression to another that is equally pernicious.

Some MPs feared a change in the law could lead to the public promotion of homosexuality (which is what soon happened), one doubting that ‘even the most doughty champion of the Bill would deny that many male homosexuals are of the proselytising type. Even they have very great misgivings about the propensity of homosexuals to try to spread their practice among others. I do not think that that can be denied. To make such a denial would be to go back on the principle on which the clauses increasing penalties for corruption of young people are based.’ The Bill included a provision to increase the prison sentence from two years to five years for those engaging in homosexual acts with males under the age of 21. The now sainted Alan Turing’s conviction involved a 19 year old, but although there is no talk now of the ‘corruption’ of young people by behaviour such as his, all MPs during the debate supported the increased penalties for acts of this kind which were then seen as predatory. This only goes to prove that paranoia over sexual expression and behaviour can change over time, depending on which groups are most vocal in promoting their agenda, and without necessarily being based on evidence or investigation into whether any harm is caused.

One Labour MP, a doctor, raised the concern ‘we all condemn the fact that many homosexuals contract venereal diseases’. Just over a decade later the rampant promiscuity of homosexuals would see thousands dying from Aids with many more needing permanent costly treatment to tackle the effects of being HIV positive. The BBC programmes celebrating the change in public attitudes to homosexuality rarely question whether homosexuals should accept responsibility for the adverse consequences of their behaviour, focussing instead on the traumatic effects that were tragically, unpredictably and unfairly visited upon the gay community by these kinds of infections.

A Conservative MP supporting the Bill raised the issue of privacy pointing out that the law ‘can be made effectively and universally enforceable only at the price of a police state, of a degree of supervision of private life which this country, even in its most puritanical periods, has never been prepared to accept.’ Whilst this observation is undoubtedly true, there are many parliamentarians and opinion formers today who are quite content for the state to micromanage private and personal relationships of the increasing numbers deemed to be ‘vulnerable’, and believed to be at risk of becoming a ‘victim’ of ever widening definitions of ‘sexual abuse’. But they never describe this intrusion into personal behaviour as a move towards a police state, which in effect is what this kind of crusade is now in danger of becoming.

The legislation allowing the change in the law was a private member’s bill but was supported by the Labour government. The Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins, spoke during the debate, firmly supporting the view that ‘homosexual acts between consenting adults in private should no longer be subject to the penalties and processes of the criminal law’. He continued ‘I believe that whatever our views about particular forms of conduct, there has to be a very clear social purpose served before it is right to subject private conduct to the rigours of the criminal law. The present law is manifestly unsuccessful and capricious in its incidence. It certainly does not deal with homosexual behaviour, let alone stamp it out. There is certainly no evidence whatever that homosexuality has increased in those countries which have relaxed the law. The present law certainly does not discourage homosexuality. I believe that homosexuality cannot be described as a disease in the sense that it can be cured; it is a disability. The capricious way in which the law operates, ruins the lives of a relatively small number of homosexuals by subjecting them in a quite irrational and arbitrary way to the terrifying penalties of the law, terrifying not because of the criminal penalties, but because of the ruinous consequences.’

The Home Secretary’s views chimed with the humane outlook of the time based on the civilised notion that the state should stay out of the role of policing private behaviour, harassing its citizens and ruining their lives in pursuit of a political or religious agenda. In recent decades we have seen the rise of a zealous ideological stridency, this time led by self styled ‘progressives’, in which the target has moved from homosexual to heterosexual men, who now find themselves having to defend themselves against the ever increasing reach of legislation and propaganda that stigmatises normal male sexual attraction and behaviour as a dangerous pathology. There always seem to be elements in society who crave the need to target, demonise and humiliate artificially created scapegoats, against whom self righteous individuals can parade their superior moral virtues, this time through a crusade against exaggerated victimhood.

Policing teenagers

As part of the File on 4 radio series the BBC recently broadcast the story of a youth in his early teens who came out as gay and as a consequence became the subject of online approaches by adult men. The agenda behind the programme was to condemn the response of the police and to question ‘whether they have been slow to get to grips with cases of child exploitation when they involve boys’. The BBC has for decades been promoting homosexuality as a perfectly normal and natural, almost commendable, form of sexual expression. More recently the corporation has become equally zealous in furthering the hysteria over paedophilia that has become the main money-spinner for children’s charities. This programme brought together the agenda for the promotion of homosexuality with the paranoia over paedophilia that warrants some consideration.

The programme centred around Yorkshire schoolboy Ben who at the age of 13 announced on Facebook that he was gay. This came as a shock to his parents who thought that he was a bit young to make such a decision publicly. However, they accepted the situation but warned him to be careful ‘as there are some nasty people out there’. Previous to his announcement Ben had many school friends but they all melted away when his homosexuality was revealed. We are constantly being told by the politically correct class that attitudes to homosexuality have changed out of all recognition in recent times. However, the response of Ben’s schoolmates suggests that many people still take a different view to the establishment line on this matter.

Because he had been shunned by his school fellows Ben felt isolated and started to search online for youths of about his own age who might be gay. At no time in the programme is Ben ever criticised for the many foolhardy and irresponsible actions he took. Instead he is presented as a helpless victim of events beyond his control. Quite soon Ben is sending out naked photos of himself to an older teenager, and is being contacted by adult men looking for sex. As a result Ben contacted Childline who in turn informed the police. Two police officers visited Ben and advised him not to send out naked photos again, the issue which Ben was mainly concerned about as the older teenager had started to blackmail him. The police took no action on the advances of the older men as Ben himself was less concerned about this. In the words of Ben ‘he did not think this much of an issue’.

So Ben continued to chat online with the older men and agreed to meet up with some of them. Ben’s behaviour started to change and his relationship with his parents began to deteriorate, and there was also a detrimental impact on his schoolwork. However, at this stage the parents were still unaware of the extent of Ben’s activities. They would soon find out as his school had discovered that he had been meeting up with men for sex during his lunch breaks. The police were called and his mobile phone and laptop were confiscated. Ben claimed that his mental state began to deteriorate and he started to self harm. He blamed the men whom he was meeting for ‘brainwashing’ him into this sexual activity, in so doing absolving himself of all responsibility for his potentially deleterious actions.

By now all the major safeguarding agencies had become involved but according to the programme ‘had failed to get a grip’. It was alleged that these agencies didn’t treat the sexual exploitation of boys with the same seriousness as that against girls. The parents started to blame themselves for what happened and warned the men contacting Ben to keep away from him. Ben however was still meeting them and even travelled to London to stay the weekend with one of his contacts. On this occasion the police were called who tracked Ben down, taking him to a police station where his parents had to make the long journey to London to collect him.

The police informed the parents of the large cost of the operation to find Ben involving several police forces. At the same time the police warned Ben that he was the ‘facilitator’ and that if it wasn’t for his age they would not be investigating the matter. They also threatened him with being placed in a ‘secure unit’ if he did not change his behaviour as he was wasting police time and money. In the programme the parents are outraged by this police response, failing to acknowledge that Ben’s reckless behaviour could be a contributory factor. Ben himself stated that the police ‘didn’t want to help him and just considered him to be a nuisance’. Ben, like his parents, takes no responsibility for his own behaviour, describing himself as ‘vulnerable’.

Although Ben’s parents now start to take more responsibility to prevent Ben seeking out men, Ben himself still manages to continue seeing them. Another meeting is arranged between the parents and the police, where Ben is again accused of being a facilitator and that they do not have the resources to monitor him until he reaches the age of 16. This response appalled the parents, who still viewed Ben as a blameless victim. According to a police memo the case officer recorded that ‘I get the impression that the family only see Ben as a victim, and are blinkered to the fact that he is partially responsible for instigating the offences himself.’ A ‘child protection expert’ recruited by the BBC blamed this outlook on police prejudice against ‘gay young men who want to experiment with sex and go out looking for it’. The BBC’s expert denounced this as a ‘dangerous’ viewpoint, without providing any evidence, analysis or arguments to back up this opinion. Despite the police’s concern about Ben’s behaviour and the impact on time and resources, in practice, the police continued to investigate the ‘grooming’ behaviour of men targeting Ben, covering a period of several years.

It should be realised that this radio programme was a one sided piece of propaganda in which the BBC controlled all the information provided to the listener. For example, we never get to hear how Ben presented himself on social media and whether he notified his contacts of his true age. There was plenty of criticism of the police for failing to investigate the men who were supposedly ‘grooming’ Ben, despite Ben himself not being much troubled by their attentions.

Grooming is a 21st century legal term coined as a result of the spreading paranoia over teenage sexual activity. In popular parlance it is called ‘chatting up’, a preliminary ritual in which young men flatter reluctant young ladies in the hope of eventually ‘scoring’ with them. However, homosexuals rarely do chatting up, since both parties being promiscuous they pretty soon quickly get down to business. The criminalisation of chatting up teenagers now means that it is an offence for an 18 year old youth to ask a 15 year old girl for a date, as the authorities now deem this to be ‘evidence’ of ‘grooming’ and thus a sexual offence.

Although physically now an adult, in the programme Ben is repeatedly described as either a ‘boy’ or a ‘child’, and the message is repeatedly conveyed that he is a helpless victim who requires the open ended involvement of the safeguarding authorities, regardless of the time, cost or effort involved. Coming out as gay was presented in the programme as being nothing more than a label, or a badge, supporting a favoured minority group, with the implicit message that Ben had demonstrated honesty and courage in publicly displaying his sexual orientation. What the programme failed to realise however was that coming out as gay meant in practice that Ben now believed that he had reached an age when he wished to engage in sexual relations with other males. So it should have really come as no surprise that as soon as he was provided with an opportunity to do so, he quickly put his sexual orientation into practice by willingly engaging in sex with the men who had contacted him. This is what being gay is all about and Ben through his recklessness, willingly and repeatedly assumed the role of a rent boy.

There is no doubt that Ben behaved foolishly in engaging in sexual relation with men he hardly knew, as he could easily have become infected with sexually transmitted diseases (STD), which because of their often rampant promiscuity, homosexual men are much more likely to suffer from than the general population. But the BBC showed no concern about the risk from STDs since it would stigmatise homosexuals, and thus be contrary to their agenda of always presenting gay people in a positive light. Instead they focussed on the ‘abuse’ that Ben was supposedly facing. However, the police in a rare display of realism, rightly recognised that Ben was a willing participant in the sexual activity with older men, and because of this they were castigated for the crime of telling the truth and not sticking to the approved script of combating the ‘abuse’.

The safeguarding authorities take the view that all instances of sexual activity involving teenagers below the age of consent constitutes ‘sexual abuse’, regardless of whether they were willing participants, or whether they were harmed in any way. Enormous publicity is given to middle aged adults claiming that they were ‘abused’ ‘over a period of years’ when they were in their teens. They can do this safely under cover of anonymity and it is impossible to challenge or investigate their accounts. We are never told why they continued to collude in the ‘abuse’ without taking the obvious and easily achievable steps to put a stop to it. In conformity with this agenda the wider media never investigate or challenge the collusion of these often compensation seeking ‘victims’.

During the programme Ben, against all the evidence, continued to insist that he was a blameless victim, a vulnerable teenager brainwashed by these demonised men. But we were never told what harm he experienced through his willing sexual encounters, just a repetition that he had been a victim of ‘abuse’ in conformity with children’s charities money minting agenda that sexual activity becomes a psychological pathology whenever engaged in by young teens. The degree to which state authorities now consider it appropriate to micromanage the personal lives of young teenagers is invasive, intrusive as well as pointless given the vast numbers of individuals involved practicing this state disapproved behaviour.