Turing Not Pardoned for Being Gay

[Jake0fTrades]

Two sides to every story.

 

[Aprilgold]

What he did was illegal at the time. Sure it sucks but if you break the law then you get punished. Just because they later change the law does not mean you were right to break it at the time.

Oh and all these "He did great works so should be forgiven blah blah blah" are the exact same sort of people who argue that Roman Polanski should be forgiven for raping a child just because he makes (apparently) good movies.
So yeah...

Difference between willing raping a child and being a homosexual. One is a willing choice on a persons part and one is a sexuality. Homosexuality, at the time, was a crime, but it shouldn't be compared to a willing choice on someones behalf. I'm not saying that the ruling at the time was incorrect, I'm just pointing it out that your comparing someone who willing took and raped little boys to a homosexual who had no choice in being a homosexual.

Didn't he molest school boys, but was too important for the work he was doing to be punished at that time, so after he finished his work, they charged him?

Could you fetch a link and then edit it into your post on Page 2 which is 31 posts or so down from the first post on Page 2.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

What exactly the point of pardoning someone posthumously? Seriously, what is accomplished?

While I fully understand that for the most part, being sorry about a situation one creates doesn't change anything... A guilty party saying their sorry and admiting their wrong doing is worth something.

In this case, it be this particular court apologizing for the past sins with the idea that it won't make the same mistake in the future.

Yes, yes, it's symbolic and silly and the guy is still dead, but it should be done.

Eh, from the article:

An previous petition, organised by computer security expert and author, John Graham-Cumming in 2009 led to the then Prime Minister Gordon Brown issuing an unequivocal posthumous apology to Mr Turing on behalf of the Government, describing his treatment as "horrifying" and "utterly unfair".

They already apologized and admitted it was wrong. A pardon won't exactly do anything further.

Well it would be making it offical.

To invert your argument, he's already long since dead, why not just pardon him?

 

[MPerce]

What everyone else said. It was a law at that time, so you can't pardon him for it. You can apologize, which is what they did.

 

[ntw3001]

Like everyone else is saying, they're pretty much right. An apology has already been issued, but a pardoning is acknowledging that he wasn't guilty of the crime. They've already acknowledged that homosexuality should not be considered a crime (by making that the case); there's no sense in now retroactively determining that it never was. A pardon would be an acknowledgement that he was actually innocent of the accusations; it's not a value judgement. It would be like saying 'well since Robin Hood (yeah, I know) was otherwise such a pillar of the community, we've decided he actually never robbed anyone'.

 

[OmniscientOstrich]

snip

Uhh, I think we're kinda past that point in the argument, dude. :3 Look at my other posts here, we kind of went on a back and forth on this. Anyway, Daystar and Mortai have kind of made the deciding points.

To invert your argument, he's already long since dead, why not just pardon him?

You could but that's not going to make much of a difference, an apology has already been made and apparently this whole thing has completely eluded the public conscious. At any rate, some hollow 'official' concession from the government really isn't going to hold much sway with the general public. They know it's unjust, they're perfectly capable of seeing the facts for themselves, they don't need to see a posthumous pardon for Oscar Wilde to know that what was done to him was unjust. It doesn't matter what some idiotic antediluvian legal system thought of these men over 60 and 100 years ago respectively, thier accomplishments in their respective fields shall far outlive such trivialities, that's what the people will remember and admire them for. Slapping on a sticker that reads 'not guilty' on his tombstone isn't change the opinion of the general public, more likely then not, they'll glance half-heartedly at the title and smile a little in recognition of something they already know to be true, then they'll get on with their day. I just don't see any reason to believe that posthumous pardoning actually accomplishes anything and especially when an apology has already been offered, I don't see how this would be any more significant.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

What exactly the point of pardoning someone posthumously? Seriously, what is accomplished?

While I fully understand that for the most part, being sorry about a situation one creates doesn't change anything... A guilty party saying their sorry and admiting their wrong doing is worth something.

In this case, it be this particular court apologizing for the past sins with the idea that it won't make the same mistake in the future.

Yes, yes, it's symbolic and silly and the guy is still dead, but it should be done.

Eh, from the article:

An previous petition, organised by computer security expert and author, John Graham-Cumming in 2009 led to the then Prime Minister Gordon Brown issuing an unequivocal posthumous apology to Mr Turing on behalf of the Government, describing his treatment as "horrifying" and "utterly unfair".

They already apologized and admitted it was wrong. A pardon won't exactly do anything further.

Well it would be making it offical.

To invert your argument, he's already long since dead, why not just pardon him?

Why just him and not the millions of people convicted of crimes since the beginning of time that would not be found guilty today?

There is nothing to be gained by doing it, and a can of worms to be had if they do it.

As far as I understand it, and I'm fairly inebriated so I very well could be wrong, his felony was being Gay right?

 

[lacktheknack]

What's done is done. What would having him pardoned accomplish beyond a very, very slight boost of morale to the gay community? We can't go repealing every conviction of archaic offenses for no real reason. It costs money, something the world generally doesn't have right now.

 

[ZeroMachine]

The point of this would be...?

Anyone with half a brain, whether against or for gay marriage, would know that this man was wronged. Digging up the criminal records of an old, dead man to basically either white that out or write "our bad, sorry" would do nothing. Who today would benefit? What would it do for society?

Instead, honor his memory by working to assure that such an atrocity would happen to no one else.

 

[deserteagleeye]

Striking it from the records won't do much really. As long as they acknowledge it as a horrible mistake and learn from it, that'll be enough. So it is good someone brought it up but it's not something that can corrected by changing the ruling.

 

[quantumsoul]

It's because they knew he was secretly plotting to take over the world with an army of gay robots. Obviously.

Seriously though, it's just how retardedly black and white laws can be. It's something not illegal now so they should just do it. If it makes the British government look like a bunch of homophobes they should eventually cave in. I think Turing deserves to be honored.

 

[direkiller]

Law graduate, reporting for duty.

We can't retroactively pardon people for things that are no longer crimes, in the same way that we can't retroactively punish people for things that are crimes now, but weren't years ago.

Im sorry but what?

Ex post facto is not a two way street like that.

People have repeatedly been let off for crimes that are no longer crimes(or pardon after the fact).
Rosa parks: was convicted under Chapter 6, Section 11 segregation law of the Montgomery City code
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/us/31pardon.html

I don't know if UK law works the same way but US court system is based on the English Law system so it should operate roughly the same in this case.

 

[Aprilgold]

Could you fetch a link and then edit it into your post on Page 2 which is 31 posts or so down from the first post on Page 2.

A link for what? Also, why are you pointing out the page and post number of my post?

You never heard about how he was a child molester and that it was overlooked until he completed his work?

You can check wikipedia for that. Or read a book by a nonfiction Historian named Anthony Cave Brown titled 'The Secret Life of Sir Stewart Menzies, Spymaster to Winston Churchill.

-'Menzies had known that Turing was a practicing and aggressive homosexual; this had emerged soon after his employment at Bletchley. But since he caused no offence to his colleagues at Bletchley, and since he was perhaps the only man in Menzies's service who might have been called ?indispensable,? his services were retained... Early in 1944 a suspicion arose that he might have been the man responsible for molesting schoolboys at the main public library in Luton, a large industrial town not far from Bletchley. While no proceedings arose, it was decided that the need for good order and discipline required his removal - but not before he had done his finest work.'-

I had heard this before, which is why I asked the question. Not sure if you were being snotty with me, or just never heard that before and assumed Turing could do no wrong, and that the refusal to pardon him must be a huge conspiracy instead of an actual reason. Who likes reasons anyways?

Never heard it before, which is why I asked if you could edit in a link to something that would tell me about it, so you yourself wouldn't have to. And yes, that is your post, so you can easily find it and edit in the link which I requested.

 

[tkioz]

Personally I should think Turing should not only be posthumously pardoned, he should also receive a posthumous Victoria Cross for his wartime service (forget the "in the face of the enemy bit" he was at danger of being lynched by his own people and he still contributed!), a posthumous George Cross for his services after the war in computing science, and that counts as services to humanity.

FFS they give knighthoods to rockstars and puffed up little premadonnas, this man should go down in history with his name kept in the same company as Einstein, Newton, Galileo, Darwin, and Hawking!

Hell most every nation on the planet should be giving him their highest civil honour, not only did he fight one of the most evil empires in history, but he literally contributed to the birth of the modern world.

 

[370999]

Sucks to be him but you can't pardon someone if they did actually break the law in question. The law was evil and wrong and I would like to hope I would of had the strength to be actively against it at the time, but Turing can't be pardoned. Sahme but we learn from our mistakes.

 

[Arakasi]

I think that attempting to fix something that was done so long ago with no current detriments is stupid, but not as stupid as them not accepting it.

 

[fenrizz]

seriously?

1. it was a stupid law from a very conservative time, I mean an ACTUAL crime mabye, but this was not a crime, he did not hurt anyone

2. are you comparing the rape of a 13 year old to gay sex? no......

1. The laws the law. Does not matter one bit what you think of it. If you do not like it then you lobby to get it changed. If you break it then you get punished.
People still get punished for non crimes like downloading shit but if you do it and get busted then you knew the risks and did it anyway.

2. Yes... A criminal is a criminal and their other activities do not give them free reign to break the law. Everyone should be held to the law regardless of how nice they are or how they contribute in other ways to society.

So...
Following that reasoning no jews should be offered compensation for the actions taken against them by the nazis during WWII.
What they did (being jewish) was illegal at the time, and as you pointed out the law is the law and a criminal is a criminal.

 

[Zack Alklazaris]

I agree that they shouldn't go out of their way searching for every person they ever wronged. However, when a petition is brought up to pardon someone that the government wrong why not just do it? Most of the work is already done for them, isn't it?

 

[Daveman]

The House of Lords is a very backwards place that really has no reason for existing in my eyes. Not surprised, just slightly disappointed.

 

[Wintermoot]

pardoning a dead man for a crime is pretty pointless.
PS
BUT if there are this many people who want this to happen you should just pardon him.