GLEN calls for pardon of those convicted of homosexual offences

Until as late as 1993, sexual activities between consenting males in the Republic of Ireland were still controlled by two stupidly archaic British laws – the 1861 Offences Against The Person Act and the 1885 Criminal Law Amendment Act. The law was a disgraceful attempt to crush difference, and to force individuals to conform to what was a horribly narrow, religiously-driven, mean-spirited, pseudo-moralistic and deeply bigoted view of the world.

Those who engaged in homosexual acts were not just perfectly within their rights in doing so – they have to be applauded for their bravery in deciding that they would not be cowed, nor would they allow their sexuality to be repressed, by a law that was clearly abusive and wrong. Their courage in expressing themselves sexually was vital in creating the climate where we could finally grow up as a nation and begin to acknowledge the breadth and variety of human sexuality, and of individual sexual desires and needs.

Hot Press understands that there is a potential complication, in that the blunt law, which criminalised homosexual acts between males was used in relation to both consenting and non-consenting sexual acts. However, the British government dealt with that issue effectively by limiting the pardon to acts that are now legal – meaning that the pardon could not extend, for example, to paedophile acts.

Concerns have been expressed also about the issue of anonymity. In this respect, it is clear that there is no way that the idea of a pardon should be used a way of outing or re-outing people who are entitled to their privacy. But again, that is easily dealt with. A general pardon would be a symbolic acknowledgement of the fact that the laws – which were put in place when Ireland was a province of Victorian Britain and left intact, and enforced, by the Catholic moral crusaders of the Irish republic– should never have been allowed to linger on the statute books in this country.