In 1967, after a ten-year campaign, the laws which treated all homosexual acts between males as crimes in England and Wales were altered to permit such behavior between two consenting men aged over twenty-one in private. Twenty-five years on, the profound significance of that change, and the nature of the struggle that was waged to achieve it, are not always fully appreciated. Gay people and their lifestyles are still the subjects of considerable controversy and entrenched prejudice, and today's gay rights campaigners are justified in believing that many more sweeping changes in legal and social attitudes are now called for. Quest for Justice is the inside story of the battle for the Wolfenden reforms, told by one of its main protagonists. Antony Grey was Secretary of the Homosexual Law Reform Society during much of the campaign and for some time afterwards. Here, besides giving his personal account of the reform campaign, he comments on the subsequent course of the developing movement for gay rights, and his own not always entirely harmonious relations with it. He also describes the rising power of the 'moral majority' backlash, and its bitter attacks upon the liberalisers whom it miscalled 'permissive'. Whilst expressing disappointment at the slow progress of human sexual rights during recent years, and a sense of ever greater urgency, with the advent of AIDS, for the widespread acceptance of much more frank and realistic attitudes, Antony Grey concludes on a hopeful note, foreseeing a sexually saner twenty-first century in which updated moral, social and legal attitudes will combine to promote, rather than hinder, human happiness.

Against the background of the law reform debates around sexuality in Britain and America, Bamforth examines what functions it is legitimate for the law to serve and how effective law can be in achieving social goals. He provides a new and cogent argument for protecting lesbian and gay rights through law, but is sceptical about how useful law can be in eradicating discriminatory social practices. This work sheds new light on the equal rights debate and raises issues of central importance to the role of law in society.

Volume I of The Official History of Criminal Justice in England and Wales frames what was known about crime and criminal justice in the 1960s, before describing the liberalising legislation of the decade. Commissioned by the Cabinet Office and using interviews, British Government records, and papers housed in private, and institutional collections, this is the first of a collaboratively written series of official histories that analyse the evolution of criminal justice between 1959 and 1997. It opens with an account of the inception of the series, before describing what was known about crime and criminal justice at the time. It then outlines the genesis of three key criminal justice Acts that not only redefined the relations between the State and citizen, but also shaped what some believed to be the spirit of the age: the abolition of capital punishment, and the reform of the laws on abortion, and homosexuality. The Acts were taken to be so contentious morally and politically that Governments of different stripes were hesitant about promoting them formally. The onus was instead passed to backbenchers, who were supported by interlocking groups of reformers, with a pooled knowledge about how to effectively organise a rhetoric that drew on the language of utilitarianism, and the clarity and authority of a Church of England. This came to play an increasingly consequential and largely unacknowledged part in resolving what were often confusing moral questions. This book will be of much interest to students of criminology and British history, politics and law.

Inspired by recent adoptions of same-sex marriage, From Sodomy Laws to Same-Sex Marriage provides international perspectives on the legal and social history of same-sex relationships from the early 19th century to the present. Its emphasis is on areas where the impetus for change has been most noticeable: Europe, the Americas, and Australasia. From Sodom and Gomorrah to Britain's sodomy laws and continental Europe's abhorrence of sexual acts 'against nature', the history of same-sex love traditionally ranged from fire and brimstone maledictions to secrecy and scandal. Until recently, legal positions across the western world reflected the legacies of the British and French empires, as well as Christianity, particularly Catholicism. In recent years, however, there has been a revolution in attitudes towards same-sex relationships. This poses hitherto unanswered questions: what historical complexities lie behind the revolutionary shift from punitive attitudes to legal endorsement of same-sex relationships? Given the cultural variety of historical attitudes to same-sex relationships, why has their legal acceptance been so international? The essays in this volume provide answers to these questions, offering the first international overview of the topic. While other studies have attempted to explain the change in legal and social treatment of same-sex relationships in a national context, or within a shorter time frame, this is the first volume to examine the topic from the French Revolution to the present day, bringing together a diverse array of perspectives over a range of countries. It is an important volume for students and scholars of queer history, the history of sexuality, law and sociology.

This critical sourcebook compiles excerpts from the extensive interviews undertaken by the Wolfenden Committee on the subject of prostitution. The Committee is remembered, first and foremost, for recommending the decriminalization of sex between men. However, the other half of its remit—prostitution—has largely been forgotten, despite the fact that prostitution, not homosexuality, was the original impetus behind the Committee’s appointment. If we consider the Committee and its Report from this perspective, its status as both a liberal and permissive endeavour must be called into question. This book captures the controversy, diversity and complexity of opinions surrounding prostitution in this period, and provides critical analysis and context. It restores the question of prostitution to its central place in the history of Britain’sso-called progressive era and challenges the way that the Report and its legacy have been characterized. Crucially, this book highlights the substantial evidence gathered by the Committee on prostitution outside of London, which the Wolfenden Report itself largely disregarded. The excerpts, the reprinted report, and the critical introductions to each chapter are intended to spark important debates amongst students, researchers and the public about the history of sexuality, society and the state in twentieth-century Britain.

This book argues that there is an important connection between ethical resistance to British imperialism and the ethical discovery of gay rights. It examines the roots of liberal resistance in Britain and resistance to patriarchy in the USA, showing the importance of fighting the demands of patriarchal manhood and womanhood to countering imperialism. Advocates of feminism and gay rights are key because they resist the gender binary's role in rationalizing sexism and homophobia. The connection between the rise of gay rights and the fall of empire illuminates questions of the meaning of democracy and universal human rights as shared human values that have appeared since World War II. The book casts doubt on the thesis that arguments for gay rights must be extrinsic to democracy and reflect Western values. To the contrary, gay rights arise from within liberal democracy, and its critics polemically use such opposition to cover and rationalize their own failures of democracy.

The Intimate State explores how state-supported mental health initiatives made emotional intimacy both politically valued and personally desired during a crucial period of modern British psychiatric and cultural history. Focusing on the transformative decades following World War II, Teri Chettiar narrates the surprising story of how individual emotional wellbeing became conflated with inclusive democracy and subsequently prioritized in the eyes of scientists, politicians, and ordinary citizens. This new model of emotional health promoted nuclear families and monogamous marriage relationships as fundamental for individual and political stability and fostered unexpected collaborations between British mental health professionals and social reformers who sought to resolve the Cold War crisis in political and moral values. However, this model also generated backlash and resistance from communities who were excluded from its vision of idealized intimacy, including women, queer people, and adolescents. Ultimately, these communities would foster a new generation of activists who would turn the state agenda on its head by demanding political recognition for marginalized citizens on the basis of emotional health. Through new archival research, The Intimate State traces the rise of a modern psychiatric view of the importance of intimate relationships and the resultant political culture that continues to inform identity politics--and the politics of social equality--to this day.