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Brits lower age-of-consent for gay sex, then don't
Britain's Labour government wanted to reduce the age-of-consent for male homosexuals acts from 18 to
16 the same as for heterosexual and lesbian sex but it didn't want anybody to notice. It almost succeeded.
On June 22, the House of Commons approved the equalization by a nearly three-to-one vote, ending,
it seemed, Britain's most blatant symbol of official discrimination. Ever since the UK decriminalized
homosexuality in 1967, it has maintained a higher age-of-consent for male homosexual acts, though the age had
been reduced recently from 21 to 18, and is already 16 in Scotland.
But joy turned to outrage when on July 22, Britain's unelected House of Lords vetoed the age
reduction. The Lords usually rubber-stamp acts approved by the House of Commons. But with right-wingers seizing on
the issue, strong opposition from the Church of England, and with some 70 percent of Britons polled opposing
gay sex for males under 18, the Lords trounced the measure 2-to-1. Angry demonstrators blocked exits at
Parliament after the vote, keeping the Lords stuck inside.
Tony Blair's Labour government, which has shamelessly promoted hysteria around sex and the
young, was uncomfortable supporting a lower gay age-of-consent. The governemnt scheduled the parliamentary
vote the night of Britain's World Cup match against Romania, so as to distract the tabloids.
Labour's hand was forced, however, by the European Commission of Human Rights, which had ruled
in October 1997 that the discrepancy was illegal. Labour did not make a lower age-of-consent an official
government position had it done so, the Lords, by tradition, would not have vetoed it. Nor did Labour impose
party discipline on its MPs, allowing them instead to vote their conscience. This is an option Labour does not give,
the activist group Outrage complained, in votes on matters of racial or gender equality. Blair's government
quashed a proposals to eliminate from Britain's new sex offender registry names of men convicted of gay sex with
16-and 17-year olds, and refused to support a general anti-gay discrimination measure, or an end to
criminalizing gay sex involving more than two persons. These were all measures some activists hoped to link to the
consent reform.
Remarkably, though, parliament narrowly rejected a vague measure advanced to water down the
lowered age-of-consent with new provisions criminalizing sex between 16- and 17-year-olds and persons "in
authority." The proposal would have made sex within some marriages illegal.
In the end, the Lords' vote will only delay the equalization of the age-of-consent, though the next
proposal the government advances will probably be diluted. Sex decriminalization in Britain has historically
been followed by more vigorous prosecutions of victimless sex crimes not covered by law reform. Prosecutions
of homosexuals, for cottaging and other offenses, shot up after legalization homosexual acts in 1967.
Ironically, the next age-of-consent measure may be attached to sex offender legislation that Labour
plans for the fall, which provides for indefinite sentences for victimless sex crimes, and expands the
sex-offender registry. Lowering the age-of-consent for gay sex in Britain will be a great victory when it happens, but it
will come at a great price. **
Editor's Note: from The Guide, September 1998
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