Alan Turing pardoned for being homosexual

[tenni]

This is what they use to do to the men who had sex with other men. Alan Turing has just been pardoned by the Queen.


"The namesake of the A.M. Turing Award, sometimes called the "Nobel Prize of computing," Turing was castrated in 1952 after being convicted of homosexuality, then a crime in Britain.
Having chosen chemical castration over a prison sentence, Turing is believed to have killed himself two years later. He is credited with breaking the previously unbreakable Nazi code machine called "enigma" during World War II, which many say helped lead to an Allied victory over Germany's Adolf Hitler."

http://www.advocate.com/world/2014/08/22/queens-decree-alan-turing-now-officially-pardoned

[Annika L]

Turing was an amazing man, and should have been knighted, rather than castrated. His contributions to computer science went far beyond helping to win WWII.

His death was tragic, and the further contributions he could have made had he lived have been and will be sorely missed.

[jem_is_bi]

I think he would have appreciated the pardon before castration much more than after death. So, why now? Maybe, relief for feelings of guilt.

[Shadowrider]

Agreed. He definitely should have been knighted and in his own lifetime. So many things happened from breaking those codes even during the war. German sub fleet nearly annhiliated. Rommel not getting the supplies he needed because all the supply ships to North Africa got "spotted" and sunk. Arguably even the aircraft carriers sent out on "training exercises" during Pearl Harbor.

[2bi2Bboring]

Turing was a genius, one who was obviously misunderstood, because the nature of homosexuality was misunderstood. This pardon is really not for him, but to clear the conscience of those who convicted him and sentenced him to such a cruel and unusual punishment. We have a bad habit of feeling we can absolve ourselves of injustices we allow to happen in the world. This is a crime, one that a Prime Minister and a Queen knew of and allowed to happen. Turing committed suicide a year after the Queen's coronation, this happened on her watch, she bears as much responsibility as anyone. It shows how vilified homosexuals have been over the course of modern history.

[elian]

In other news this week, "Pope declares Joan of Arc a Saint.."

I had to move my eyes closer to the screen and look again, but in fact it does say "1952" - I would expected it to say "1852" -- so we really have come a long way then, haven't we?

Is very sad that this man had to endure "punishment" .. there are a lot of very talented LGBT individuals that society would ignore if they didn't shine so brightly.

This is what made me so neurotic growing up, it was like - no matter how much good I did or how much I tried to please the people around me, there was always that one part of me deep down that other people mocked..most of them had no clue they were even doing it since I hid my orientation back then.

Oh, so it's this shit.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_castration ..nice - I think in the 1970's US courts decided that they needed to forcibly sterilize females as well. Gotta love Puritan folk.

So it would seem that MOST countries are using this against pedophilia..

[2bi2Bboring]

Yeah this is a bit like the Popes absolution of Galileo, DUH! He was only RIGHT! Damn this guy only shortened WWII by a decade or so, saved millions on both sides of the war, and the rest of the freaking WORLD! You'd think HRM Elizabeth II could cut the guy some slack. We defy logic, truly we do when we hate what we don't understand.

[leredacteur]

Yes, indeedy: Turing, that young Rutgers student fellow who leaped off the GW bridge, and thousands upon thousands more cases just like theirs are what gives me that warm, comfy, cozy feeling of self-satisfaction at not being one of the "moral majority." Sexual prejudice, just like race prejudice and religious prejudice, we have always with us. Not much has changed, in those areas of hate and resentment, in the last six or seven centuries. If you believe that things "really are better now," you're deluding yourself.

[tenni]

"Turing, that young Rutgers student fellow who leaped off the GW bridge"

Uh? You may want to google Alan Turing and WW2. Are you certain that you are referring to the same man?

As far as the Queen's role in this matter, I understand that the present Conservative government refused. For her own reasons, she has decide to act with a pardon. This in itself is an exceptional act. I doubt that she would have been personally involved in 1952 with his castration decision. As Elain states, a lot of change has happened in the past sixty two years as far as same sex activity between men.

[2bi2Bboring]

Update: this should set the record straight.
http://youtu.be/S5CjKEFb-sM
Nothing like Hollywood getting behind a cause to shine a little light on injustice.

BTW Tenni, I think he was referring to two separate people in that statement, not saying Turing was at Rutgers and jumped off a bridge.

[pole_smoker]

Update: this should set the record straight.
http://youtu.be/S5CjKEFb-sM
Nothing like Hollywood getting behind a cause to shine a little light on injustice.

BTW Tenni, I think he was referring to two separate people in that statement, not saying Turing was at Rutgers and jumped off a bridge.

Don't count on that film to be historically accurate at all.


The story of Alan Turning is an old one and there are more modern ones that should be told.


There are still about 70,000 other men who were prosecuted for homosexuality and/or bisexuality, and haven’t been pardoned. Many of them are still alive. What is the U.K going to do about them, I wonder.


Alan Turing was also circumcised as a child, and deeply resented it. I feel like that may have influenced his decision to opt for the castration in some way, he was a man shamed into miserable self-destruction. So sad.


It’s maybe one of the worst violations imaginable, just don’t mess with a person’s genitals. As a guy, a bisexual guy to boot, I can’t imagine what it must be like to resent your dick. It sounds like a jokey thing to say but it really isn’t…it’s such an emotional, complex, important organ. I even think circumcising or male genital mutilation is just going much too far.


The guy at Rutgers who took his own life was not Alan Turing.