Assuming this is true (I don't know), would a heterosexual man have received the same punishment? In any case, it seems pretty cruel and unusual to me.
Cruel? From the lens of modern times, certainly. But don't we still chemically castrate certain sex offenders?
I don't know if we can make the assumption that it was his being gay that spared him the jail time, or if other considerations were at play; and if another man benefiting from the same considerations but with different preferences would have been treated differently, as you say. And together with the following:
> But don't we still chemically castrate certain sex offenders?
This goes back to the view back then of homosexuality as sexual (and criminal?) deviance. I feel like we're pretty much back at the point of his sexuality being the reason for the chemical castration.
Not sure what point you’re trying to make here. His chemical castration was a condition of his probation following his indecency conviction, and had nothing directly to do with his security clearance.
> following his indecency conviction, and had nothing directly to do with his security clearance.
It had nothing directly to do with his being gay. You can be gay without starting relationships with homeless boys and getting your house broken into, exposing yourself to blackmail or coercion.
Do you really (personally) believe that? You don't think his gayness was a factor at all?
Seeing the way he was treated by law enforcement, particularly after the facts started coming to light, I can't believe it wasn't a factor. His final charge may have been more for the classified info risk as you say (I honestly don't know enough about the details to have an opinion there), but many parts of the process I think would have gone a lot more differently had he not been gay. Without a doubt in my mind, they would not have treated him so disrespectfully and cavalierly.
It was a factor, but not directly. I believe Turing's gayness is being pink washed. The way I see it, the UK was not castrating people for being gay, but gave this option after breaking indecency laws and being convicted for it.
> particularly after the facts started coming to light
Turing went to police to file a report and casually (perhaps ignorantly or haughtily) admitted to breaking a law.
Yes I agree, but (and I'm honestly asking because I don't know) was it one of those laws that nobody really took seriously or that was still on the books even though it was never enforced? Or was it a crime that was enforced at the time?
Edit: Unrelated to above, but from parent comment, I hadn't heard of "pink washing" before so just dropping a link for others who might not have heard of it either: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkwashing_(LGBT)
Being married is a hard prerequisite for being able to commit marital rape. You don't have to be gay to have gay sex that the authorities learn about.
Personally given how society was at that point in time, I think his gayness was a big factor in how he was treated, but there are better arguments than pointing to what he was charged with as that is easily refuted.
Beware that OP's post is full of random nonsense, such as the claim that the younger man in question was 'Eastern European'. (His name was Arnold Murray and he was born in the UK, as far as anyone has been able to ascertain.)
> His treatment was in line with that of other gay men of the time who were charged with similar offences (perhaps more 'lenient' if anything).
Not challenging you, but do you or anybody have some numbers on how often this was prosecuted? It's probably impossible to say since by definition much of the activity was underground, but that doesn't match my current understanding of the environment.
[1]: as is always a risk when stating facts, there's a risk of is/ought fallacy here with people interpreting my statement of facts with what I think should be the case. I'm not saying it ought to be this way, merely that it was. I think we've made great progress in this area and I'm glad for it.
There’s nothing complicated about the Turing case. It was a crime at the time to have gay sex. He admitted to a police office that he’d had gay sex. This led to him being prosecuted.
I’d urge you to spend more time looking at the facts of the case and less time questioning the universally accepted narrative on the basis of what you admit is no evidence.
Just in the article you linked to, it says that 49,000 gay men were pardoned. It also says the law against "gross indecency with a man" was passed in 1885 and was only repealed in 1967. The law against "buggery" was first used in 1533 and was in place until the 19th century!
If we assume that 100 million people lived through those times, and that the conservative estimate of approximately 3% gay population held, then there would have been 3,000,000 gay people during that time. That means that 1.6% of gay people ended up prosecuted. If we only consider men, then 3.2% ended up prosecuted. This seems to me to be a little more nuanced than you are suggesting, otherwise there wouldn't be such a huge inconsistency in enforcement.
Since we're urging each other now, I’d urge you to spend more time thinking about how perception can differ from reality, what the pitfalls are of binary thinking and blind acceptance, and why Socrates encouraged people to have humility about what they think they know.
I’d also add that your hypothetical conviction rate of 3.2% is pretty high, considering that people generally have sex in private. As a point of comparison drawn at random, the current conviction rate for car thefts in England and Wales is 2.12%.
Of all the men in history charged with "gross indecency", Turing was the only one to receive a pardon. He was not castrated for being gay, but for a relationship with an Eastern European 19-year old homeless man, and getting his house broken into, while having a security clearance and access to secret information.