What Was the Labouchere Amendment?
by Wik Wikholm
Playwright Oscar Wilde spent two years in prison at hard labor; computer
scientist Alan Turing endured forced estrogen injections; and thousands
of
other British citizens were tormented -- all because of the Labouchere
Amendment.
On August 6, 1885, as the House of Commons was considering raising the
age of
consent for heterosexual intercourse, Member of Parliament Henry
Labouchere
proposed a law that would, for the first time, make any form of sex
between
men a crime. Anal sex had been illegal, but Labouchere's amendment
extended
punishment to "any act of gross indecency" in public or in private. The
Attorney General insisted that the sentence be two years at hard labor;
Labouchere agreed and the bill passed.
The amendment victimized thousands, but Henry Labouchere was an unlikely
villain. Though he was born a banking heir, Labouchere considered
himself a
rebel against Great Britain's class system. Before his election to the
House
of Commons, Labouchere earned a reputation as a fearless journalist and
an
enemy of the establishment. He often used his pen to irritate his two
favorite enemies, the aristocracy and the royal family. Labouchere
believed
that Britain's House of Lords, composed of titled aristocrats and
Anglican
Bishops, should be abolished in favor of an elected body, and he often
complained that Queen Victoria and her family cost the nation more money
than
they were worth. Once elected, Labouchere championed the interests of
the
working classes.
Today, Labouchere's law seems like a stain on an otherwise unblemished
liberal record, but in 1880s England the law seemed progressive. The
amendment was attached to the Criminal Law Amendment Act, a law that was
drafted under pressure from Social Purity feminists who were outraged
about a
double standard that had developed in England. Prostitution was
tolerated by
the middle class, but concerns about the spread of syphilis moved
Parliament
to pass a law to contain the disease. The law allowed officials to pick
up
women and force them to submit to medical examinations just because they
looked like prostitutes. In some towns, any working-class woman was at
risk.
Diseased or not, men escaped these humiliations, an inequity that
infuriated
the Social Purity movement. The feminists believed it was wrong to blame
fallen women for prostitution and venereal disease. The real culprit was
male
lust, a force they found so powerful that they demanded enforcement of a
strict moral code to contain it. A man who yielded to his animal
passions was
a danger to society. Lust threatened to force more girls into
prostitution
and to destroy families when husbands brought syphilis home, and any
threat
to the family was a threat to the health of the nation.
A law against male-male sex seems odd in retrospect, but it made sense
to the
feminists. Sex between men, still the "crime not to be named among
Christians," seemed the supreme expression of sexual lust unleashed.
According to the feminists, a man who could commit an act as abhorrent
as
gross indecency had foresworn the most basic restraints of civilized
Christian morality. Such a morally deranged man seemed likely to also
sexually abuse girls and women and was best locked away to protect the
innocent from his predations.
The Labouchere amendment remained on Britain's law books unchanged for
more
than 80 years. A Parliamentary committee studying homosexuality
challenged
the law in 1957, but gay Englishmen had to wait until 1967 for their sex
lives to become legal. Today the age of consent for heterosexual sex
(16) is
still lower than that for gay sex (18).
Further Reading:
Hyde, H. Montgomery. The Other Love: An Historical and Contemporary
Survey of Homosexuality in Britain. 1970. London: Heinemann.
Lesbian and Gay Staff Association, South Bank University. Knitting Circle
Law Centre."
Pearson, Hesketh. Labby: The Life and Character of Henry
Labouchere.
1937. New York: Harper.
Weeks, Jeffrey. Coming Out: Homosexual Politics in Britain From the
Nineteenth Century to the Present. 1990. London: Quartet.
Wik Wikholm produces www.gayhistory.com, an introduction to modern gay
history.
He can be reached on the site's discussion boards, or by e-mail at
wik@gayhistory.com.
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