Sexual Offences Act 1967
Encyclopedia
The Sexual Offences Act 1967 is an Act of Parliament
in the United Kingdom
(citation 1967 c. 60). It decriminalised homosexual acts in private between two men, both of whom had to have attained the age of 21. The Act applied only to England and Wales and did not cover the Merchant Navy
or the Armed Forces. Homosexuality was not decriminalised in Scotland
until passage of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1980
and in Northern Ireland
by the Homosexual Offences (Northern Ireland) Order 1982
.
and a peer Lord Arran
put forward proposals to humanise the way in which criminal law treated homosexual men by means of the Sexual Offences Bill. This attempt at liberalisation in the laws relating to male homosexuality
can be placed in the context of rising prosecutions against homosexual men. The potential for these prosecutions to bring existing sexual offences legislation into disrepute was seen as acute and is evidenced by an article published by The Sunday Times
entitled "Law and Hypocrisy" on 28 March 1954.
In his 1965 Sexual Offences Bill, Arran drew heavily upon the findings of the Wolfenden Report
(1957) which recommended the decriminalisation of certain homosexual offences.
The Wolfenden committee was set up to investigate homosexuality and prostitution
in the mid 1950s, and included on its panel a Judge, psychiatrist, an academic and various theologians. They came to the conclusion (with one dissenter) that criminal law could not credibly intervene in the private sexual affairs of consenting adults in the privacy of their homes. The position was summarised by the committee as follows: “unless a deliberate attempt be made by society through the agency of the law to equate the sphere of crime with that of sin, there must remain a realm of private that is in brief, not the law's business” (Wolfenden Report, 1957).
There was no political impetus after the publication of the Wolfenden report to legislate on this matter; however, by 1967 the Labour Government of the time
showed support for Arran's mode of liberal thought. It was widely viewed that criminal law should not further penalise homosexual men for their fixed disposition, already the object of ridicule and derision. The comments of Roy Jenkins
, Home Secretary at the time, captured the government's attitude: "those who suffer from this disability carry a great weight of shame all their lives" (quoted during parliamentary debate by The Times
on 4 July 1967).
The Bill received royal assent
on 28 July 1967 after an intense late night debate in the House of Commons
.
Lord Arran, in an attempt to minimise criticisms that the legislation would lead to further public debate and visibility of issues relating to homosexual civil rights made the following qualification to this "historic" milestone: "I ask those [homosexuals] to show their thanks by comporting themselves quietly and with dignity… any form of ostentatious behaviour now or in the future or any form of public flaunting would be utterly distasteful… [And] make the sponsors of this bill regret that they had done what they had done" (quoted during Royal Assent of the bill by The Times
newspaper on 28 July 1967). The legal consequence of the legislation is often described as partial decriminalisation of male homosexuality as the act introduced a strict exemption from prosecution (distinct from a full decriminalisation) the implication of this being that outside this exemption, technically speaking, homosexuality continued to be a punishable offence in and of itself.
Peter Tatchell
in his 1992 book Europe in The Pink claims that the legislation actually facilitated an increase in prosecutions against homosexual men.
In 1979, the Home Office Policy Advisory Committee's Working Party report Age of Consent in relation to Sexual Offences recommended that the age of consent
for homosexual offences should be 18. This was rejected at the time, in part due to fears that further decriminalisation would serve only to encourage younger men to experiment sexually with other men, a choice that some at the time claimed would place such an individual outside of wider society. Subsequent amendments to homosexual offences legislation across the United Kingdom illustrates how this line of thought has moved on rapidly, particularly within the past six years.
Act of Parliament
An Act of Parliament is a statute enacted as primary legislation by a national or sub-national parliament. In the Republic of Ireland the term Act of the Oireachtas is used, and in the United States the term Act of Congress is used.In Commonwealth countries, the term is used both in a narrow...
in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
(citation 1967 c. 60). It decriminalised homosexual acts in private between two men, both of whom had to have attained the age of 21. The Act applied only to England and Wales and did not cover the Merchant Navy
Merchant Navy
The Merchant Navy is the maritime register of the United Kingdom, and describes the seagoing commercial interests of UK-registered ships and their crews. Merchant Navy vessels fly the Red Ensign and are regulated by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency...
or the Armed Forces. Homosexuality was not decriminalised in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
until passage of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1980
Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1980
The Criminal Justice Act 1980 is an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom . It decriminalized private homosexual acts between two consenting adults in Scotland:"Subject to the provisions of this section, a homosexual act in private shall not be an offence provided that the parties consent...
and in Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
by the Homosexual Offences (Northern Ireland) Order 1982
Homosexual Offences (Northern Ireland) Order 1982
The Homosexual Offences Order 1982, No. 1536 , is an Order in Council which decriminalized homosexual acts between consenting adults in Northern Ireland. The Order was adopted as a result of a European Court of Human Rights case, Dudgeon v...
.
Legislative history
In the 1960s, one MP, Leo AbseLeo Abse
Leopold Abse was a Welsh lawyer, politician and gay rights campaigner. He was a Welsh Labour Member of Parliament for nearly 30 years, and was noted for promoting private member's bills to decriminalise male homosexual relations and liberalise the divorce laws...
and a peer Lord Arran
Arthur Gore, 8th Earl of Arran
Arthur Gore was a Conservative whip in the House of Lords. His father was Arthur Gore, 6th Earl of Arran. He was the father of Arthur Gore, 9th Earl of Arran....
put forward proposals to humanise the way in which criminal law treated homosexual men by means of the Sexual Offences Bill. This attempt at liberalisation in the laws relating to male homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
can be placed in the context of rising prosecutions against homosexual men. The potential for these prosecutions to bring existing sexual offences legislation into disrepute was seen as acute and is evidenced by an article published by The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times (UK)
The Sunday Times is a Sunday broadsheet newspaper, distributed in the United Kingdom. The Sunday Times is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News International, which is in turn owned by News Corporation. Times Newspapers also owns The Times, but the two papers were founded...
entitled "Law and Hypocrisy" on 28 March 1954.
In his 1965 Sexual Offences Bill, Arran drew heavily upon the findings of the Wolfenden Report
Wolfenden report
The Report of the Departmental Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution was published in Britain on 4 September 1957 after a succession of well-known men, including Lord Montagu, Michael Pitt-Rivers and Peter Wildeblood, were convicted of homosexual offences.-The committee:The...
(1957) which recommended the decriminalisation of certain homosexual offences.
The Wolfenden committee was set up to investigate homosexuality and prostitution
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
in the mid 1950s, and included on its panel a Judge, psychiatrist, an academic and various theologians. They came to the conclusion (with one dissenter) that criminal law could not credibly intervene in the private sexual affairs of consenting adults in the privacy of their homes. The position was summarised by the committee as follows: “unless a deliberate attempt be made by society through the agency of the law to equate the sphere of crime with that of sin, there must remain a realm of private that is in brief, not the law's business” (Wolfenden Report, 1957).
There was no political impetus after the publication of the Wolfenden report to legislate on this matter; however, by 1967 the Labour Government of the time
United Kingdom general election, 1966
The 1966 United Kingdom general election on 31 March 1966 was called by sitting Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson. Wilson's decision to call an election turned on the fact that his government, elected a mere 17 months previously in 1964 had an unworkably small majority of only 4 MPs...
showed support for Arran's mode of liberal thought. It was widely viewed that criminal law should not further penalise homosexual men for their fixed disposition, already the object of ridicule and derision. The comments of Roy Jenkins
Roy Jenkins
Roy Harris Jenkins, Baron Jenkins of Hillhead OM, PC was a British politician.The son of a Welsh coal miner who later became a union official and Labour MP, Roy Jenkins served with distinction in World War II. Elected to Parliament as a Labour member in 1948, he served in several major posts in...
, Home Secretary at the time, captured the government's attitude: "those who suffer from this disability carry a great weight of shame all their lives" (quoted during parliamentary debate by The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
on 4 July 1967).
The Bill received royal assent
Royal Assent
The granting of royal assent refers to the method by which any constitutional monarch formally approves and promulgates an act of his or her nation's parliament, thus making it a law...
on 28 July 1967 after an intense late night debate in the House of Commons
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...
.
Lord Arran, in an attempt to minimise criticisms that the legislation would lead to further public debate and visibility of issues relating to homosexual civil rights made the following qualification to this "historic" milestone: "I ask those [homosexuals] to show their thanks by comporting themselves quietly and with dignity… any form of ostentatious behaviour now or in the future or any form of public flaunting would be utterly distasteful… [And] make the sponsors of this bill regret that they had done what they had done" (quoted during Royal Assent of the bill by The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
newspaper on 28 July 1967). The legal consequence of the legislation is often described as partial decriminalisation of male homosexuality as the act introduced a strict exemption from prosecution (distinct from a full decriminalisation) the implication of this being that outside this exemption, technically speaking, homosexuality continued to be a punishable offence in and of itself.
Peter Tatchell
Peter Tatchell
Peter Gary Tatchell is an Australian-born British political campaigner best known for his work with LGBT social movements...
in his 1992 book Europe in The Pink claims that the legislation actually facilitated an increase in prosecutions against homosexual men.
Debate
No subsequent reconsideration of the issue of male homosexuality in statutory law took place in England and Wales until the late 1970s.In 1979, the Home Office Policy Advisory Committee's Working Party report Age of Consent in relation to Sexual Offences recommended that the age of consent
Age of consent
While the phrase age of consent typically does not appear in legal statutes, when used in relation to sexual activity, the age of consent is the minimum age at which a person is considered to be legally competent to consent to sexual acts. The European Union calls it the legal age for sexual...
for homosexual offences should be 18. This was rejected at the time, in part due to fears that further decriminalisation would serve only to encourage younger men to experiment sexually with other men, a choice that some at the time claimed would place such an individual outside of wider society. Subsequent amendments to homosexual offences legislation across the United Kingdom illustrates how this line of thought has moved on rapidly, particularly within the past six years.
Amendments
- The age of consentAge of consentWhile the phrase age of consent typically does not appear in legal statutes, when used in relation to sexual activity, the age of consent is the minimum age at which a person is considered to be legally competent to consent to sexual acts. The European Union calls it the legal age for sexual...
of 21 for homosexual males set by the 1967 Act was reduced to 18 by the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It introduced a number of changes to the existing law, most notably in the restriction and reduction of existing rights and in greater penalties for certain "anti-social" behaviours...
after an attempt to equalise the age of consent with that of the heterosexual age of consent of 16 introduced as an amendment by the then ConservativeConservative Party (UK)The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
MP Edwina CurrieEdwina CurrieEdwina Jonesnée Cohen is a former British Member of Parliament. First elected as a Conservative Party MP in 1983, she was a Junior Health Minister for two years, before resigning in 1988 over the controversy over salmonella in eggs...
narrowly failed. - In 2000, the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949The Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 are two Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which form part of the constitution of the United Kingdom. Section 2 of the Parliament Act 1949 provides that that Act and the Parliament Act 1911 are to be construed as one.The Parliament Act 1911 The...
were invoked to ensure the passage of the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000The Sexual Offences Act 2000 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It changed the age of consent for male homosexual sexual activities from 18 to that for heterosexual and lesbian sexual activities at 16, or 17 in Northern Ireland...
which equalised that age of consent at 16 for both homosexual and heterosexual behaviours throughout the UK. - The Sexual Offences Act 2003Sexual Offences Act 2003The Sexual Offences Act 2003 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland that was passed in 2003 and became law on 1 May 2004.It replaced older sexual offences laws with more specific and explicit wording...
, though subject to some controversy, overhauled the way sexual offences are dealt with by the police and courts, replacing provisions in the Sexual Offences Act 1956Sexual Offences Act 1956The Sexual Offences Act 1956 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that consolidated the English criminal law relating to sexual offences between 1957 and 2004. It was mostly repealed by the Sexual Offences Act 2003 which replaced it, but sections 33 to 37 still survive. The 2003 Act...
as well as the 1967 Act. The offences of gross indecency and buggeryBuggeryThe British English term buggery is very close in meaning to the term sodomy, and is often used interchangeably in law and popular speech. It may be, also, a specific common law offence, encompassing both sodomy and bestiality.-In law:...
have been deleted from statutory law, and sexual activity between more than two men is no longer a crime in the United Kingdom.