Timeline of UK LGBT Legislation

Timeline of UK LGBT Legislation

1100

1102 The Council of London took measures to ensure that the English public knew that homosexuality was sinful.

1200

c.1290 – Publication of Fleta, first book to mention a punishment for homosexuality in English law.

1500

1533 The Buggery Act 1533, formally An Acte for the punysshement of the vice of Buggerie (25 Hen. 8 c. 6), made certain homosexual activity punishable by death in England. The Act was passed during the reign of Henry VIII, as part of a process of bringing activiites that had previously been covered by church law under the normal criminal law. It defined "buggery" as as "an unnatural sexual act against the will of God and man" but this was later clarified as referring to anal intercourse.

1553 Mary Tudor ascends the English throne and removes all of the laws passed by Henry VIII.

1558 Elizabeth I ascends the English throne and reinstates the sodomy laws.

1700

1726 The House of Margaret Clap (molly hose) in London is raided by police, resulting in the execution of three men.

1785 Jeremy Bentham is one of the first people to argue for the decriminalization of sodomy in England.

1800

1824 Vagrancy Law Amendment Act was an Act of Parliament that was designed to clean up London’s streets, but also suppressed men’s use of public space, it, in effect, banned cruising. It was followed by the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1912.

1828 Offences against the Person Act 1828 known as the Lord Lansdowne’s Act, was an Act of Parliament applying only to England and Wales. It contained provision for unnatural acts and buggery. Up until 1861, the punishment for buggery was the death penalty, since the Buggery Act 1533. The Act was wholly replaced by the Offences against the Person Act 1861.

1861 Offences against the Person Act 1861 was an Act of Parliament which was similar to today’s criminal justice bill. Section 61 of the Bill dealt with “unnatural offences” specifying “buggery”. It replaced the death penalty for buggery with life imprisonment “for any term not less than ten years”. This section replaced section 15 of the Offences against the Person Act 1828. In England and Wales section 61 was repealed and replaced by section 12(1) of the Sexual Offences Act 1956. In England and Wales section 62 was repealed and replaced by sections 15(1) and 16(1) of the Sexual Offences Act 1956. In Northern Ireland section 62 was found to be incompatible with the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and was repealed by the Sexual Offences Act 2003.

1885 The Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 raised the age of consent for girls to 16. Section 11 of the Act, introduced late one evening by Henry Labouchere MP, and hence referred to as the Labouchere Amendment, made "gross indecency" between males a crime. Gross indecency was not defined, as it was thought immoral to actually specify in law what it meant, but in effect any sexual activity between men, in public or private, became a crime. In practice, the law was used broadly to prosecute male homosexuals where actual sodomy could not be proven. Lawyers dubbed Section 11 the "blackmailer's charter".

1895 Oscar Wilde was given two years hard labour for Gross indecency.

1897 George Cecil Ives organises the first homosexual rights group in England, the Order of Chaeronea.

1900

1912 The Criminal Law Amendment Act 1912 was an Act of Parliament that was designed to clean up London’s streets, but also suppressed mens’ use of public space, it, in effect, banned cruising. It introduced the public order offence of “persistently importuning for an immoral purpose”.

1952 Alan Turing punished for Gross indecency by chemical castration, which probably led to his suicide.

1956 Sexual Offences Act 1956 is an Act of the Parliament that consolidated the English criminal law relating to sexual offences between 1957 and 2004. Section 1(1) replaced section 48 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861, section 14(1) replaced section 52, section 15(1) replaced section 62, section 16(1) replaced section 62, and section 20 replaced section 55. Section 13 dealt with gross indecency. It was mostly repealed (from 1 May 2004) by the Sexual Offences Act 2003 which replaced it.

1957 John Wolfenden published the Wolfenden Report that led to the decriminalisation of homosexuality in the UK.

1967 The Sexual Offences Act 1967 legalised sex between men in private, with an age of consent of 21. The Act applied only to England and Wales, but not the Merchant Navy or the Armed Forces. Homosexuality was not decriminalised in Scotland until the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1980 and in Northern Ireland by the Homosexual Offences (Northern Ireland) Order 1982.

1980 Equivalent to The Sexual Offences Act 1967 happened in Scotland with the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1980, and in Northern Ireland two years later through the Homosexual Offences (Northern Ireland) Order 1982.

1988 Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 was an anti-gay piece of legislation, which came into law on 24 May 1988 and was repealed on 21 June 2000 in Scotland, and on 18 November 2003 in England and Wales (it did not apply to Northern Ireland).

1994 The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 reduced the age of consent for sex between men to 18, and legalised anal sex between men and women, also with an age of consent of 18.

2000

2000 Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000 equalised the age of consent for both homosexual and heterosexual acts, for both men and women, as 16 in Great Britain, 17 in Northern Ireland. It also made it illegal for teachers and other people in a position of trust to have sex with their pupils etc under 18. The Bill which eventually became the Act was introduced in response to a ruling of the European Court of Human Rights. It was rejected by the House of Lords, and was eventually passed when the Government invoked the Parliament Act 1949.

2000 Ethical Standards in Public Life etc. (Scotland) Act 2000 was an act of the Scottish Parliament which repealed the Scottish equivalent of Section 28

2003 Sexual Offences Act 2003 is an Act of Parliament that was passed in 2003 and became law on 1 May 2004. It replaced older sexual offences laws, including the Sexual Offences Act 1956, with more specific and explicit wording. In Victorian times it was deemed immoral to define offences such as gross indecency.

Group homosexual sex was decriminalised by section 12 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956 being omitted, removing the offence of homosexual sex “when more than two persons take part or are present”.

2004 Civil Partnership Act 2004 introduced civil partnerships in the United Kingdom. Civil partnership provides the same rights for same-sex couples under the law as marriage, but the ceremony cannot contain any religious content or be held in a place of worship.