Homosexuality a Crime?

     Thousands of men were arrested, and convicted of crimes such as buggery, gross indecency and loitering with intent.They had been arrested in bars,coffee houses, public bathrooms and sometimes their own homes. In many cases, these men were being arrested for seeking intimacy with another man. 
      Decades after homosexuality is decriminalized in Britain, the government announced on Thursday that it will pardon thousands of gay and bisexual men who in essence, had been convicted of seeking or having sex with another man. This gives men who are still alive the chance to have their names cleared. 
        The law providing the pardons is named after Alan Turning. He was a mathematician who made a major contribution to Britain in World War II by cracking Germany's Enigma coding machine and was a central figure in the development of the computer. He was convicted of homosexuality in 1952, and committed suicide in 1956. In 2009 the government apologized for their treatment of him, and in 2013 Queen Elizabeth II formally pardoned him. 
        Consensual sex between men ages over 21 was decriminalized in England and Wales in 1967, Scotland in 1980, and Northern Ireland in 1982. The age was changed in 2001 to 16. 
      Oscar Wilde, the Irish playwright, is also another example of someone who may be pardoned. He was convicted and sentenced to two years of hard labor in 1895 after being accused of sodomy. 

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