PM's apology to codebreaker Alan Turing: we were inhumane

[oldironside]

• Enigma genius chemically castrated for being gay
• Admission comes 55 years after Turing took his life

"Gordon Brown issued an unequivocal apology last night on behalf of the government to Alan Turing, the second world war codebreaker who took his own life 55 years ago after being sentenced to chemical castration for being gay.

Describing Turing's treatment as "horrifying" and "utterly unfair", Brown said the country owed the brilliant mathematician a huge debt. He was proud, he said, to offer an official apology. "We're sorry, you deserved so much better," Brown writes in a statement posted on the No 10 website.

Turing is most famous for his work in helping create the "bombe" that cracked messages enciphered with the German Enigma machines. He was convicted of gross indecency in 1952 after admitting a sexual relationship with a man.

He was given experimental chemical castration as a "treatment". His criminal record meant he was unable to continue his work for the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) because his security privileges were withdrawn. Two years later he killed himself, aged 41."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/11/pm-apology-to-alan-turing

Although it might seem an empty gesture it is, like a funeral, a memorial service or a minute's silence, more for the living than the dead.

[LeftishBrit]

1. Finally. 55 years late, but still = k&r.

ETA: Apparently too late to 'r' but still 'k'.

[BolivarianHero]

2. He's not really sorry...

If he were really sorry, same-sex marriage would be legal and anyone affiliated with Opus Dei or with conservative evangelical sects would be expelled from Labour.

[Nihil]

3. ... and moreover ...

... every little girl would have a pony, the sun would always be shining
in the school holidays and homework would be banned ...

Meanwhile, back in the real world ...

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. Opus Dei? That's a bizarre hobby-horse to insert into this

You're after a witch-hunt of certain Christians, are you?

[BolivarianHero]

5. I don't throw that in there for the Hell of it...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Kelly

Kelly is a practising Roman Catholic, a member of Opus Dei<4><5><6> and regular attender at their meetings and events.<7><8> Her brother, Ronan Kelly, is a supernumerary in the Opus Dei organisation.<9> Previously, uncertainty has existed over Kelly's Opus Dei membership, partly because she herself has declined when asked to say whether or not she is a member, saying that the matter is a private one,<10> and saying only that she has received 'spiritual support' from them.<11>

The reason this is an issue is that Tony Blair made her the Equality Commissioner for LGBT issues ... Members of far-right factions of the Roman Catholic Church have no place in a social democratic party. Catholics, in general, are more than welcome.

[oldironside]

6. I´m very much with you on this one...

But I´d go further. Social Democracy has nothing to do with lunatic apocalyptic religious cults, however many adherents they may have. These people and their weird medieval belief systems have infiltrated the Labour Party just as the Militant Tendency tried to. Odd that the people who think it´s valid to argue over whether it is a shoe or a sandle (or if we should just follow the gourd) were more successful.

In short, never trust anyone who´s prepared to swear that the sun goes round the earth. And if the sun doesn´t go round the earth, why should the rest of the Bible be any more reliable?
"And that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana shaped..."

[BolivarianHero]

7. Don't bash Militant...

They were about the only people in Labour putting up a coherent fight against Thatcherism in practice.