Sexual Offences Act 1967
The Sexual Offences Act 1967 is an Act of Parliament that partially decriminalised homosexual acts in private between two men over the age of 21 in England and Wales. It came into force on 27 July 1967 and is widely regarded as a landmark moment in UK LGBT history, though its provisions were significantly limited in scope.
The Act did not apply to the Merchant Navy or the Armed Forces, and did not extend to Scotland or Northern Ireland.
Contents
Background
Male homosexual acts had been criminalised since the Labouchere Amendment to the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, which created the broadly defined offence of "gross indecency" between men. In 1957 the Wolfenden Report recommended that homosexual acts between consenting adults in private should no longer be a criminal offence. It took a further ten years for Parliament to act on this recommendation.
In 1966 a Sexual Offences Bill sponsored by the Conservative MP for Lancaster, Humphry Berkeley, sought to partially decriminalise homosexuality. This was debated but Parliament was dissolved for the 1966 General Election before it could be passed into law [1].
The Act
The Sexual Offences Act 1967 was steered through Parliament by Labour MP Leo Abse and Lord Arran as a Private Member's Bill under the Harold Wilson government. It decriminalised consensual homosexual acts between men, subject to strict conditions:
- Both parties had to be aged 21 or over — the heterosexual age of consent was 16
- The act had to take place in private
- Only two people could be present
Limitations and subsequent reform
The unequal age of consent of 21 — five years above the heterosexual age of consent — meant that gay men remained criminalised for a significant portion of their adult lives. The age of consent for gay men was reduced to 18 in 1994, and finally equalised at 16 in 2001 under the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000.
The exclusion of the Merchant Navy and Armed Forces meant that gay servicemen remained subject to prosecution regardless of the Act. The ban on gay people serving in the military was not lifted until 2000.
Scotland and Northern Ireland
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.
Alan Turing Law
Following the posthumous Royal Pardon of Alan Turing in 2013, the government announced in 2016 that men convicted of gross indecency for consensual private acts would receive pardons under what became known as the Alan Turing Law. Approximately 50,000 men were estimated to have been affected.
See also
References
- ↑ Humphrey Berkeley subsequently lost his seat to a Labour candidate at the General Election on a swing from Conservative to Labour in Lancaster of 6.10%. This was one of the highest swings in the County of Lancashire. The Times Guide to the House of Commons 1966 (London 1966).
