Unexpectedly, the Radical MP Henry Du Pré Labouchère (1831-1912) proposed an amendment to make sex between men a crime. This Eleventh Clause of the Criminal Law Amendments Act stated that, "Any male person who in public or private commits or is a party to the commission of or procures or attempts to procure the commission by any male person of any act of gross indecency with another male person shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and being convicted thereof shall be liable to be imprisoned for any term not exceeding two years with or without hard labor."

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was first criminalized in England in 1533. In 1861, the Offences against the Person Act reduced the punishment for sodomy from capital punishment to life imprisonment. Labouchère's amendment was, however, more insidious, for it extended punishment to any homosexual act between men, defined as "gross indecency." It also made the prosecution of homosexuals easier by not requiring evidence of penetration. Lesbian activity was completely ignored.

The bill passed on August 7 without any debate, possibly because the MPs were eager to return home to campaign for the upcoming election.

Labouchère had never before shown any particular interest in matters of sexuality, and it is a puzzle why he proposed his amendment. A banking heir, he had focused his attentions on the injustices of the English class system. He came to national prominence as the muckraking editor of the weekly Truth. Within its pages, he pushed for judicial reform, advocated abolishing the House of Lords in favor of an elected body, and attacked the racism evident within the imperialist system. The amendment may have been another attempt to protect the weak from predators.

Commonly referred to as the blackmailer's charter, the Labouchère Amendment led to an enormous amount of misery. Its vagueness about evidence, consent, and procuring led to expansive judicial interpretations.

Oscar Wilde, coincidentally a man Labouchère once admired, became the clause's most prominent victim in 1895. Wilde spent two years in prison at hard labor.

Many other gay men shared Wilde's fate, while countless thousands silently suffered extortion and the mental torture brought by fear of exposure. Many chose suicide over arrest and exposure.

The Labouchère amendment became a device for perpetrating fear and hatred of male homosexuality for more than 80 years. A Parliamentary committee studying homosexuality challenged the law in 1957, but not until 1967 did adult gay men gain the legal right to engage in consensual sex in England.

If the closet has served to institutionalize homosexuality as shameful and inferior vis-à-vis the legitimate heterosexual culture, it has also provided a space of possibility for subversive sexual and political acts.

From its beginning, the nineteenth century in England had a purposeful homosexual literature of considerable bulk, both male and female, though it was fettered by oppression.

Given the dominance of the Roman Catholic church on its culture, Ireland was a country in the closet until relatively recent times.

The capital of the United Kingdom and one of the world's largest and most interesting cities, London has recently become home to an active and diverse glbtq population.

The United Kingdom has a rich and vibrant legacy of queer cultural expression despite a long history of severe legal sanctions against male-male sexual acts and other manifestations of sexual and gender deviance.

Twentieth-century efforts to reform British law and public opinions about homosexuality met with mixed results, but at the beginning of the twenty-first century the United Kingdom has emerged as a leader in recognizing the rights of its glbtq citizens.

The Cleveland Street scandal of 1889, involving members of the nobility and allegations of a government cover-up, fueled the perception of homosexuality as an aristocratic vice that corrupted working-class youths.

The popular English novelist Marie Corelli is now known chiefly as a camp figure who inspired E. F. Benson's Lucia.

One of the greatest scientists of his generation, computer pioneer Alan Turing was also a victim of cold war homophobia.

Oscar Wilde is important both as an accomplished writer and as a symbolic figure who exemplified a way of being homosexual at a pivotal moment in the emergence of gay consciousness.

The Wolfenden Report, a 1957 British government study, recommended that homosexual behavior between consenting adults in private no longer be criminalized in England.