I had no idea that this went on, I always like to think you all in the UK are more socially advanced than the US, so I'm really shocked it was illegal to be gay in the 60's and they made people go through that aversion therapy.

Did the people who suffered through this sue the government or anything?

Me. They'll never catch me, knickers or no knickers.

God, I hope they're not just going to work through the whole cast, arresting and dearresting them. They actually are, aren't they? What a load of carp.

IMO, a lot of European countries are pretty accepting, hence why it became legal way before a lot of US states in these countries. I don't know if they sued the government, but Alan Turing was given a royal pardon a few years ago by the Queen and rightly so.

It is a horrible thought, there was something a Catholic woman in the USA put on Facebook about how her son came out to her & his father & they weren't very happy so started stopping him from doing sports (locker rooms, they thought he didn't want to be tempted) & not letting him invite friends over & even taking the door off his bedroom so he doesn't get up to anything. They were also drumming into him that being gay will mean he'd never get anywhere in his life & that he'll never be happy, have kids & he will catch something & die.

I wish I could find the link for it but I was horrified when I read it.

yes, they are. SOP for soap police, arrest everyone in turn until someone coughs for it.

Sorry Foxy must correct you, it was legalised in 1967 in England and Wales, however, in Scotland it wasn't until 1981 and 1982 in Northern Ireland. In 1987 I was 15 in Glasgow and coming to terms with my sexuality, and between the old prejudices still being at the forefront of people's minds and the HIV/Aids crisis, I ultimately delayed coming out until my late twenties a decision I regret to this day, even though for my own safety it was probably a wise choice.

Yes, the southern areas are bad in the states. It's nicknamed "The Biblebelt". Very homophobic, very racist and most of them are all obese.

Despite being born in the US, raised there for a few years and having half my family reside there, I am glad i have spent most of my life in the UK. I feel we are rather open minded, unlike a lot of places. Most people hide behind their religion as an excuse for their bigotry. Or some are just ignorant and uneducated.




It was me. He dumped me the night of the shooting and It got too much.


There is a campaign going on at the moment which Benedict Cumberbatch is apart of it. It's a petition to help pardon all the men who were jailed for being gay. It was passed on to the Royal famiy, but they ignored it and never even gave response.



I have heard so many stories from either the internet, newspapers or even people I know who have had their parents do all they can to stop their child being gay. I knew of one father who used to beat his son because in his mind he was "beating the gay out of him".

I could go into a huge diatribe about the US/UK situation concerning gays and history etc. but I will try to keep this as short as possible. While I would agree that socially, particularly when talking sexuality, we tend to be more advanced than Americans that is of Britain's fault in the first place as a lot of our zealots and religious fanatics were the ones who travelled the dangerous Atlantic ocean hundreds of years ago and settled in America and developed the attitudes Americans have to this day.

In the UK we tend to have a more liberal attitude overall in almost all respects, and although it wasn't until 1967,1981 and 1982 that parts of the UK legalised homosexuality, since then attitudes have altered very quickly due to the generally more liberally minded attitude.

That is the short answer, I hope this helps in some minor way.

I'm not a real expert on this, but I don't think anyone did sue the government. I don't think people thought about breaches of their human rights in the same way in the late 50s/early 60s. And the gay liberation movement didn't really get politically active until the 70s, so you'd have been on your own with it - that takes a pretty brave move.

UK attitudes to homosexuality have always been a weird cocktail, IMO. It's been very hypocritical until recently. If you were rich, for example, it was fine to be gay - you just didn't go public about it, and you'd be protected. But if you weren't, you were really vulnerable to the law. And yet there's always been folks who went against the homophobic grain and just recognised that people were what they were, and it was no ones' business but their own. My mother-in-law's best friend *never* came out of the closet, but she told us after he died that she'd always known he was gay. They used to call it "not the marrying kind". It was really sad to hear.

eta:
There's a good timeline here, if you're interested: http://www.stonewall.org.uk/pride/hi...exual-equality

That's horrible! I can't imagine how the son must've been feeling, knowing his father acted like that because he liked the same sex.

This is just wrong. "They" are a group of people you're inventing. Some Christian people are likely homophobic, just as some non Christians are. Your suggestions that Christians are all the same and think the same is made so much more ironic and baseless because you yourself have stereotyped a massive portion of the world population.

Thanks, and you do you have a point about those connection between the US and UK. those same people's descendants are are now trying to use "religious freedom" justify discriminating against gay people.


That's really interesting, to my knowledge it was never illegal to be gay in the US and I don't think the government had any programs to try and cure people. But then again our government was busy dealing with all the racial issues, something that I don't think affected the UK as much, so maybe that is why homosexuality fell under their radar.

I come from a christian family so i am not stereoptyping or being offensive to anyone. I have been apart and been witness to some awful things. I know about the religion. Once upon a time, i knew the Bible inside out. Until i turned my back on it for personal reasons. I should of said "some christians". I am not stupid to know every christian is the same. Because i haven't invented anything. I also know non christians are homphobic as well but i can assure you, if a christian is homophobic, their religion is normally used as an excuse for their hatred and bigotry. At least someone who isn't christian and doesn't agree with homosexuality have a formed opinion that isn't based on what they were told and raised to believe.

Lawrence is starting to become very interesting. Love him.

And even then, there was still quite a lot of homophobia. I don't think it was until 2010 onwards, that we really started to become accepting of it. But yes, in general I think we are a lot more advanced than the US, in terms of being liberal. You have to remember though that America is A LOT more religious than Britain.

That's my point America got a lot of our religious nutters in the 17th,18th and 19th centuries and they have taught their bigotry throughout the age. It was our politicians that turned the world against homosexuality, remember at one point or another we ruled one third of the planet, so it's this countries ancestors that are largely to blame for the nonsenses that have gone before and still continue in places like India, Pakistan, Africa and much of Asia and the Middle East. America would be more extreme if it wasn't for market economics and the perceived need for financial dominance over the world. Great Britain or the UK have done lots of good in huge parts of the world but have also caused huge amounts of suffering, and if we are to prevent the situation re-occurring we must learn from previous mistakes. Thanks

I agree. It was simply awful.

I'm curious to know what the purpose is of this scene with Lawrence.

Okay - the show has now let us into this piece of Lawrence's past - he was gay or was he bi? (the show has never really clarified that).

It was horrible / dreadful thing - so much so that he appears to be willing to go back to prison to save his daughter Chrissie from going to prison.
And no doubt we'll see Lawrence going through some kind of mental hell whilst he's locked up & under investigation.

However - what else do we know about Lawrence?
He subsequently got married to a woman - had a happy & successful marriage - and now appears to have got engaged to another woman.


Whilst we are being told how awful this treatment of gay men and this aversion therapy was - are we to believe that it works

So is this why Lawrence married a woman when he came out of prison because he was made to feel like he was a freak and that there was something wrong with him.

They have made out that he still finds men attractive, though it seems he hasnt acted on any gay feelings since Edna husband (well not so we know).

I think it serves the same purpose as Eric's "racism" storyline, which is to say no purpose whatsoever beyond being an "isshoo" tick box ticked.

Although in the case of Lawrence it does inform as to just how much he believes Chrissie is innocent

That is my question also.

I can only presume that Lawrence was bisexual. And the aversion therapy has worked in some capacity to make him feel ill when he thinks of men in a sexual manner. Leaving only the hetero-sexual side.

But there are people who claim to have successfully used aversion therapy to fix themselves, so who's to say it doesn't work?

Either way, I find it horribly offensive and Bernice's comments were obviously there to suggest that this is not condoned by the writers but is a horrific piece of Lawrence's past.

I thought it wasn't that it 'worked,' - ie its purpose was to change sexual orientation - but more that Lawrence has forced himself to deny his sexuality, for fear of being subjected to it. He didn' t stop being attracted to men, which was the real purpose of it, he just stopped acting on the attraction out if fear of imprisonment and torture. We know he's been attracted to men, because right at the beginning when they first arrived Robert taunted him by saying that he knew Lawrence fancied him. Lawrence also said something about ' temptations.' It seems to me that he' s had feelings for men, he just hasn' t acted on them. I can' t blame him really. That sort of experience would mess with your head, and if he came out of jail to a society which still regarded him as deviant, where he would be forced to hide his real feelings, out of fear and perhaps even his own prejudices, no wonder he went into denial. If it was hard for someone of Aaron' s generation to come out because he had a very macho idea of masculinity, it would have been terrible for Lawrence. I wonder how many men of Lawrence' s generation didn' t act on their feelings because of fear of repercussions? How many couples were in loveless marriages like Edna's because he had to hide his sexuality? It' s very sad.

It makes a quite a lot of sense to me, in that poor Lawrence must have been terrified of going to jail again and suffering that ( as you would be) so he' d do anything to avoid it. He's clearly been really traumatised by it, so even nowadays it's still having a massive effect on how he lives his life.

But the show has said much more than that - we have been led to believe that he has led a happy & succesfull life - and even now, he's looking to embark on yet another heterosexual marriage with Bernice.
Maybe we'll get more insight into Lawrence beyond this point but there are Xmas spoilers



It's a bit like saying sexuality is a choice - even if you have homosexual feelings, you can still lead a contented heterosexual existence as long as you don't act on your homosexual feelings!

Apologies Aaron, I was aware it was different in NI but I didnt think it was that late there or in Scotland. Homophobia is still present here but things have come on significantly in the last 10 years alone, things are much worse in America where 'therapy' like this is still actively condoned (esp by religious groups) and even worse in the 79(ish) countries where being gay is still illegal.

He has such a jaundiced and bitter view of the prison system (and justifiably so) that he he thinks Chrissie will suffer the same. So on the contrary, I think it's because he firmly believes that Chrissie did it that he is taking the blame for it so she doesn't have to.

Lawrence probably got married and had children to prove to the authorities that he wasn't a 'danger' to society any more and they could leave him alone.

He is such a complex character he has experienced the worst that the system could throw at him and yet he was so naive over Robert and the lad,s honey trap story.