Gay Humanists’ Submission on Sex Offences Review

The Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association (GALHA) has been making submissions to government bodies on gay issues since its inception twenty years ago and its latest is to the Home Office Sex Offences Review Team.

In its submission, GALHA points out that a pluralistic, democratic society should not attempt to impose any particular religious or other moral codes on its citizens as a whole: the common law offences of conspiracy to corrupt public morals and to outrage public decency should be abolished. Terms such as ‘immoral’, ‘unnatural’, or ‘indecent’ have no place in the legal codes of a modern society and should be deleted from both statute and common law.

The submission further recommends that all victimless offences be abolished: “The law should defend people from unwanted sexual exploitation by others, but not attempt to protect people from themselves. In particular, the crime of ‘gross indecency’ should be abolished: anything deserving legal prohibition is covered under other provisions.”

GALHA points out that it does not regard any of the participants in sado-masochistic sex as victims. Sado-masochistic sex is sex, not violence, and should be considered as part of the review.

“Sexual activities”, says the submission, “have two distinct roles: for reproduction and for recreation. Many of the defects of our laws arise from treating the first as ‘good’ and the second as ‘bad’, whereas they both have positive values in appropriate contexts. There is no overwhelming social case to exercise different controls over sex than over swimming or mountaineering.”

On the age of consent, the submission says it is “a ham-fisted way of protecting children who are at risk from abuse and exploitation. The review team should be considering how it can best devise and recommend the substitution of more direct ways of providing such protection in all cases in which there is no genuine consent.”

Regarding proof of offence to third parties, the submission says that many GALHA members “are more offended by hearing out-of-tune buskers or by seeing public marches in support of racist policies than by a public display of sexual affection, either heterosexual or homosexual.”

The full text of GALHA’s submission can be found on its website.