Alan Turing has been posthumously vindicated by the British Government, in response to a petition on the Number 10 website which received thousands of signatures. Turing was a brilliant mathematician and code-breaker who played a significant part in the Allied victory in World War Two. In 1952, he was tried for 'gross indecency' under the homophobic laws of the time, and sentenced to chemical castration. He took his own life two years later.
Gordon Brown's statement was actually pretty damn moving -
On behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan’s work I am very proud to say: we’re sorry, you deserved so much better.
A queer friend pointed out to me today that thanks to this little act on the part of the government, far too late for poor Turing himself, millions of people who had never heard his story now know exactly who he was, why he was a hero, and why his death was so tragically unjust. And that means as much as any personal victory for supporters of the man himself.
In other breaking news, it's eight years since the World Trade Centre collapsed, and Caster Semenya is biologically intersexed. Now be about your business.
Gordon Brown's statement was actually pretty damn moving -
On behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan’s work I am very proud to say: we’re sorry, you deserved so much better.
A queer friend pointed out to me today that thanks to this little act on the part of the government, far too late for poor Turing himself, millions of people who had never heard his story now know exactly who he was, why he was a hero, and why his death was so tragically unjust. And that means as much as any personal victory for supporters of the man himself.
In other breaking news, it's eight years since the World Trade Centre collapsed, and Caster Semenya is biologically intersexed. Now be about your business.
