Homosexual Law Reform

Anglicans were influential contributors to public debates about homosexual law reform during the 1950s and 1960s. The Church of England Moral Welfare Council applied pressure on the government to appoint an official inquiry into the laws on homosexual offences and subsequently influenced the recommendations of the Departmental Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution. Yet there was also deep Anglican opposition to legal reform. This constrained the church’s position in public debates and informed its quest to function as an agent of mediation and compromise in the years between 1957 and 1965. Anglican bishops in the House of Lords also played an important role in shaping the boundaries of the 1967 Sexual Offences Act and legitimising the moral position that underpinned decriminalisation in England and Wales.