Wolfenden report

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The Report of the Departmental Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution (better known as the Wolfenden report, after Lord Wolfenden, the chairman of the committee) was published in Britain on September 3, 1957 after a succession of well-known men, including Peter Wildeblood, were convicted of homosexual offences.

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[edit] The committee

The committee of 14, including three women, was led by John Wolfenden (1906-1985) who had previously been headmaster of Uppingham and Shrewsbury and in 1950 became Vice Chancellor of the University of Reading. He later became Director of the British Museum.

The committee also included:

The committee first met on 15 September 1954 and met on 62 days, 32 of which were used for interviewing witnesses. Evidence was heard from police and probation officers, psychiatrists, religious leaders, and gay men whose lives had been affected by the law.

[edit] The recommendations of the report

Disregarding the conventional ideas of the day, the committee recommended that "homosexual behaviour between consenting adults in private should no longer be a criminal offence". All but one of the committee were in favour of this and, contrary to some medical and psychiatric witnesses' evidence at that time, found that "homosexuality cannot legitimately be regarded as a disease, because in many cases it is the only symptom and is compatible with full mental health in other respects." The report added, "The law's function is to preserve public order and decency, to protect the citizen from what is offensive or injurious, and to provide sufficient safeguards against exploitation and corruption of others ... It is not, in our view, the function of the law to intervene in the private life of citizens, or to seek to enforce any particular pattern of behaviour." The recommended age of consent was 21.

[edit] Aftermath

The report's recommendations attracted considerable public debate, including a famous exchange of views in publications by Lord Devlin, a leading British judge, whose speeches and publications argued against the report's philosophical basis, and H.L.A. Hart, a leading jurisprudential scholar, who provided argument in its support.

The recommendations eventually led to the passage of the Sexual Offences Act 1967, which replaced the previous laws on homosexuality contained in the Offences Against The Person Act 1861. The law was only narrowly passed and it was a decade after the report was published before the law was changed.

The report's publication was a turning point in the legalization of homosexuality in Western countries, all of which have now legalized homosexuality and homosexual acts (most have also equalised the age of consent between homosexual and heterosexual acts, and have enacted anti-discrimination and same-sex partnership laws).

John Wolfenden came 45th in a list of the top 500 lesbian and gay heroes, The Pink Paper, 26th. September, 1997, issue 500, page 19.

[edit] References

  • Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution, 1957. Report of the Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office.
    • Reprinted 1963 as The Wolfenden Report: Report of the Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution. New York: Stein and Day.
  • Eustace Chesser, 1958. Live and Let Live: The Moral of the Wolfenden Report. Taylor Garnett & Evans.
  • Charles Berg, 1959. Fear, Punishment, Anxiety and the Wolfenden Report. George Allen & Unwin.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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