Wolfenden Report.

With all the debate on homesexuality still not finished (I was going to say not 'put to bed') it is interesting (to me) to go back to the report that made such conduct a little less abomidable. The bit that I find most relevant is the committee recommended that

"homosexual behavior between consenting adults in private should no longer be a criminal offence". All but one of the committee were in favour of this and, contrary to medical and psychiatric witnesses' evidence, found that "homosexuality cannot legitimately be regarded as a disease, because in many cases it is the only symptom and is compatible with full mental health in other respects". The report added, "The law's function is to preserve public order and decency, to protect the citizen from what is offensive or injurious, and to provide sufficient safeguards against exploitation and corruption of others ... It is not, in our view, the function of the law to intervene in the private life of citizens, or to seek to enforce any particular pattern of behaviour."

The interference in private life attitude has certainly blown right out of the closet.