It didn't stop the arrests: between 19, 30,000 gay and bisexual men were convicted for behaviour that would not have been a crime had their partner been a woman. It didn't come close to equalising the legal status of heterosexuals and homosexuals (that would take another 38 years). It was a battered old thing and, in many respects, shabby. Homosexuality was illegal and hundreds of thousands of men feared being picked up by zealous police wanting easy convictions, often for doing nothing more than looking a bit gay.Īt 5.50am on 5 July 1967, a bill to legalise homosexuality limped through its final stages in the House of Commons. Smiling in the park could lead to arrest and being in the wrong address book could cost you a prison sentence. Forty years ago in Britain, loving the wrong person could make you a criminal.
