Posthumous pardon for Turing?
This never ceases to annoy me:
http://www.themarysue.com/alan-turing-official-pardon/
It’s obvious what ought to be done. Either you posthumously pardon everyone who was convicted and punished under that law, or – if the law of the time is the law regardless of how silly it was – you do not pardon Turing. To posthumously pardon Turing alone is to say “heroes can get away with stuff that normal people can’t.” I don’t think that attitude leads to anything good for anyone.
December 15th, 2012 in
Uncategorized | tags: turing
This is exactly what I thought when I read the new story. Plus the word “pardon” has connotations that I don’t like in this context.
I see what the campaigners are getting at – that it’s appalling that someone who made the contribution he did should have been treated as he was – but that is probably true of many others who suffered under that law. And even if it isn’t, as you say one cannot have one law for them and a different one for another group of people.
I think that instead of campaigning for a pardon, his supporters should use him as an example in campaigns against *current* discriminatory laws and behaviour – he demonstrates that there is nothing inherently wrong with homosexuals and they are not somehow inferior, as is (at least) implied by some current laws and customs.
*news story* not new story
Yes, I think it’s natural of them to wish they could alter the past and make the government not have behaved so badly to someone to whom they owed so much. But sadly, it’s not possible to make it not have happened. And I agree, the idea that Turing needs to be ‘pardoned’ is not really appropriate, given that he didn’t do anything wrong. He can be remembered as a martyr the way Oscar Wilde is, which as you say may well do more good in the long run.