Great Britain to gay people convicted for being gay - it is not a crime, so you are forgiven

Imagine that a certain behavior is considered a crime under the law of a country.

Imagine that a person is convicted of that crime.

Imagine that at some point the country declares that that specific behavior is no longer a crime.

Imagine that the country in question has many people convicted of that crime.

No, what do you think the country will do about it?

After all, the crime of conviction is no longer a crime.

Shouldn't the country completely exonerate people convicted of that crime which is no longer a crime, cleaning up their criminal record and restoring completely their good name?

That is not what Great Britain did.

Great Britain PARDONED 50,000 deceased (dead) gay men convicted for being gay, and allowed the 15,000 gay men convicted for being gay to remain alive to apply for such pardon.

Pardoning means that Great Britain acknowledged that these men did commit a crime, but that Great Britain magnanimously forgives them for having done that.

And, as far as the deceased are concerned, the pardon will mar their memory, all over again.

It is no longer a crime, so you are forgiven, says Great Britain to gay men.

Forgiven of what exactly?

Pardoning was, of course, safer than vacating their conviction because of the change of law. 

Vacating the conviction could invite lawsuits for wrongful conviction, and the country cannot have that. 

It is better to give a pardon for no crime - as a new slap in the face of people convicted for who they are.

Not all "pardoned" convicted gay men in Great Britain are accepting the pardon though.

For example, George Montague, convicted in 1974 for "gross indecency with a man" is not having it - he wants an apology, not a pardon, and rightly so.

George Montague, apparently, did not read the piece of Professor Jonathan Turley on the law where the professor claims that giving a "royal pardon" to people who did not commit a crime is "represents an important public apology for the prosecution of people due to their sexual orientation".

Forgiving those whose lives, as Professor Turley correctly admits, were shattered because of such a conviction, and who committed no crime - FORGIVING them for the wrong done TO them - is no apology.  It is a slap in their faces.

An apology is just that - an apology.  From the government.  To those wronged.  An apology and an exoneration.

But, you know what is worse than the hypocrisy of forgiving those the government has wronged?

The laws of the United States which "collaterally estop" vacating "final convictions" based on new laws under which such convictions would not be possible.

As to those laws, and the newest case in New York produced under those laws, I will run a separate blog next.

Stay tuned.