A
poem by the respected
poet and translator
James Kirkup, entitled "The Love That Dares To Speak Its Name", was published in the British magazine
Gay News, issue 96, on 3/16 June 1976, with an illustration by
Tony Reeves. It describes a
centurion's
homosexual fantasies about the crucified
Jesus Christ.
A private prosecution was launched by Mary Whitehouse in December 1976. The editor and publisher of Gay News were tried at the Central Criminal Court in London on a charge of blasphemous libel and found guilty by a majority verdict in July 1977. Denis Lemon was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment, suspended for eighteen months, and he and Gay News Limited were fined a total of £1500 plus the prosecution costs. The convictions were upheld in a majority judgement by the Court of Criminal Appeal in March 1978, though the prison sentence was quashed, and in a majority judgement by the House of Lords in February 1979. The European Commission of Human Rights declared the case inadmissible by the European Court of Human Rights in May 1982.
The result was that it was reprinted in leaflet form, spread across the Internet, and so on. A copy of the poem is freely available from
Free Speech Movement
84B Whitechapel High Street
London
E1 7QX
United Kingdom
It must be stressed that the crime was one of blasphemous libel, that is it is both blasphemy and libel. To constitute libel it must be published. This includes the posting of the text on any website, bulletin board, or other such electronic place. It is a criminal offence under the law of England and Wales to disseminate it in any such way. The police have raided premises and seized computers on suspicion of holding copies of the poem in the form of a website.
The Free Speech Movement are allowed to send out individual copies on request because private transmission of one copy to one person is not publication, therefore not libellous. That I suppose is the theory, though I am not a lawyer, and the laws pertaining to libel may vary from one jurisdiction to another.
In their copy that they send out, they include a disclaimer, and I quote from my copy:
The present edition is published neither to express approval of its form or content, nor to cause deliberate offence to anyone, but to vindicate the general principle of free speech when there is no genuine threat of private damage or public disorder, and to protest against the survival of the particular law of blasphemy and also to make sure that the poem remains available for anyone who wishes to read it.