![\"Alan](\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/www.towleroad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/turing.jpg?resize=707%2C919\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe British government says it is “committed” to an ‘Alan Turing law’ that would pardon at least 49,000 gay<\/a> men<\/a> who were convicted under gross indecency crimes before homosexuality was decriminalized in 1967.<\/p>\n The BBC reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n World War Two code-breaker Turing was pardoned in 2013, decades after he was convicted of gross indecency in 1952. A government spokesman said it was “committed” to the proposal.<\/p>\n “This government is committed to introducing posthumous pardons for people with certain historical sexual offence convictions who would be innocent of any crime now,” the spokesman said.<\/p>\n “We will bring forward our proposals in due course.”<\/p>\n Efforts to pardon gay<\/a> men<\/a> convicted under the laws gained steam after the release of recent movies about Turing like The Imitation Game<\/em>.<\/p>\n The Independent reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n Speaking to The Independent,<\/em> Rachel Barnes, Mr Turing’s great-niece said she had been “disappointed that there had been no progress” since she and others had originally launched a petition in 2015 to extend her great-uncle’s pardon to all men<\/a> convicted under the historic laws. “I will give my backing towards any progress,” she added.<\/p>\n “It’s something the family of Alan Turing have always, always backed and we really do want justice for everybody who was affected by the anti-gay<\/a> laws. I am very pleased to hear the current administration will give it their backing.”<\/p>\n Following a screening of The Imitation Game<\/em> in London last year, actor Stephen Fry told The Hollywood Reporter<\/em> that Turing’s pardon was only the start of what should be done to honor Turing<\/a>.<\/p>\n “Should Alan Turing have been pardoned just because he was a genius, when somewhere between 50 to 70 thousand other men<\/a> were imprisoned, chemically castrated, had their lives ruined or indeed committed suicide because of the laws under which Turing suffered? There is a general feeling that perhaps if he should be pardoned, then perhaps so should all of those men<\/a>, whose names were ruined in their lifetime, but who still have families.” He continued, “It was a nasty, malicious and horrific law and one that allowed so much blackmail and so much misery and so much distress. Turing stands as a figure symbolic to his own age in the way that Oscar Wilde was, who suffered under a more but similar one.”<\/p>\n [Benedict] Cumberbatch, who played Turing in The Imitation Game, agreed with Fry: “Alan Turing was not only prosecuted, but quite arguably persuaded to end his own life early, by a society who called him a criminal for simply seeking out the love he deserved, as all human beings do. 60 years later, that same government claimed to ‘forgive’ him by pardoning him. I find this deplorable, because Turing’s actions did not warrant forgiveness — theirs did — and the 49,000 other prosecuted men<\/a> deserve the same.”<\/p>\n Turing’s family brought a petition for the pardons<\/a> to the British government last year.<\/p>\n The post British Govt Says It Is ‘Committed’ to Pardoning 49,000+ Gay Men Convicted of Gross Indecency<\/a> appeared first on Towleroad<\/a>.<\/p>\n