The Incongruity Between Conviction and Subsequent Celebration

In January 1952, a 39-year-old man was arrested in Manchester, England on a charge of “gross indecency” as specified under Section 11 of Britain’s Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885. The man’s conduct, a homosexual affair with a 19-year-old, led to a trial, guilty plea, and the sentence of probation and injection of hormones that would curb his libido. On June 8, 1954, the convicted offender was found dead of apparent suicide after consuming bites from an apple laced with cyanide. It was a tragic end to a story that no work of fiction could approach in its unlikely thread. The deceased was none other than Alan Turing, whose scientific exploits were detailed in a feature film several years ago titled The Imitation Game. It was Turing’s genius that led ultimately to the cracking of the German codes as encrypted via the Enigma machine. His work, and that of his associates, is believed literally to have shortened World War II by at least two years and saved thousands of lives in the process. This commentary is neither intended to validate nor condemn Turing’s sexual orientation or anything else relating to his personal conduct. I do not presume to possess any moral authority to cast or withhold a proverbial “stone.” Questions surrounding what is good, what is just, what is right—in the eyes of the law, other people, or the Divine—loom larger than the content of this page. The salient point here is that today, respect for the individual exists that in earlier