The Pardoning of Alan Turing

[sparkindarkness]

 Alan Turing has been posthumously pardoned for being convicted of being gay, the barbaric and vicious persecution for which eventually drove him to take his own life.

I have a lot of conflicting feelings about this one.

Firstly, for anyone asking “why Turing?” I have to say you don’t understand the iconic nature of Turing to British GBLT

Comments

[kathminchin]

I heard someone talking about this on Radio Two this morning, basically saying that the only reason he has this pardon is because Turing is famous.

It would mean so much more if they pardoned *every* person (I don't know if it was just men, or if women were also prosecuted) who had been convicted of being homosexual. A statement that we now recognise that homosexuals are a: not criminals and b: shouldn't have been convicted for being themselves.

I am glad that Turing has been pardoned, but it's not enough in my opinion. They all should be.

I also think that education in schools needs to be improved - from history to sex education.

[aviv_b]

MTE!

[sparkindarkness]

The Buggery act and its successors criminalised gay men. While certainly not remotely free from persecution, the laws have been silent on the legality of being a lesbian and it was not a criminal offence.

Aye we need a better term than pardoned -it is not Turing who did things in need of pardon. And singling out one man doesn't address the legions who were also victims

[teleens_journal]

A pardon isn't the same as overturning the conviction, so I'm with you on the conflicted feelings. A pardon still implies that their was wrongdoing, hence "begging someone's pardon."

And I'm really with you on how someone shouldn't have to be a national hero to have something horrendous happening to them recognized as wrong.

Thank you very much for your commentary. I always appreciate your perspective. Re-posting.

[sparkindarkness]

Thank you

[tinimaus]

Officialdom may have fought tooth and nail to avoid memorializing him, but I'm hoping that it might please you to hear that neither mathematicians nor people in computing ever forgot about Turing or erased him (or for that matter sci-fi novelists - I first came across his name thirty-five years ago in a novel that was written in 1973). My husband, who's a computer scientist has always spoken in the highest terms of him (and expressed his outrage at how shabbily he'd been treated). The Turing Award has been going on since the mid-sixties and isn't exactly small fry. To us the man has always been a hero, ranked with the likes of Gödel, Church, von Neumann and Hilbert. His pre-war work in Princeton and Cambridge was luckily already in the public domain and beyond the reach of those who'd rather forget him.

[suryaofvulcan]

This. Turing's presence and contribution have always loomed large over us mathematicians. I think the fact that the general public wasn't aware of him was due to both institutional homophobia (in the form of Section 28) and the fact that his work at Bletchley Park was done under the official secrets act and couldn't even be mentioned let alone publicised until the mid-70s.

For me Gordon Brown's apology to Turing in 2009 (now displayed in the Bletchley Park Museum) actually means more than the pardon. To me a pardon says 'you were a criminal but we forgive you'. An apology says 'we were wrong to call you a criminal and we're sorry'. I prefer the latter.

[tinimaus]

So agree with you. And certainly in the mid-eighties there was a play put on in the West End about the facts of his life and death that was very successful (and later turned into a movie, too, with the lovely Derek Jacobi). Breaking the Code? Cracking the Code?

[being_here]

I liked David Allen Green's piece on this: http://www.newstatesman.com/david-allen-green/2013/07/putting-right-wrong-done-alan-turing... )

[theweaselking]

My only minor quibble: "These are the people you condemn with your homophobic