Two-thirds of British public agree with gay sex pardons

Two in three British voters agree that the government should pardon all men convicted of historical gay sex offences, a new survey has revealed.

In a poll conducted by YouGov, two-thirds of British people (65%) said the government should pardon the 49,000 men it prosecuted for gross indecency before 1967, while 21% say it should not.

A quarter (25%) of Conservatives and over a third (37%) of UKIP voters oppose issuing pardons, compared to 14% of Labour voters.

The figures come just three days after the family of WWII codebreaker Alan Turing, joined by Attitude editor Matthew Todd, delivered a petition to Downing Street calling for the men to be pardoned, which had been signed by more than half a million people.

The Pardon 49k campaign calls for pardons for all men convicted, after Turing himself was officially pardoned in 2009. The number of signatures on the petition – signed by people in at least 74 countries – currently stands at more than 577,000.

“I consider it to be fair and just that everybody who was convicted under the Gross Indecency Law is given a pardon. It is illogical that my great uncle has been the only one to be pardoned when so many were convicted of the same crime,” said Turing’s great niece, Rachel Barnes.

“I feel sure that Alan Turing would have also wanted justice for everybody.”

As well as Turing’s family and Attitude, the campaign has been backed by Stephen Fry, as well as Benedict Cumberbatch who starred in Oscar-winning Alan Turing biopic The Imitation Game.

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