NPR

Decades After 'Massive Injustice' Repealed, Scotland Will Offer Pardons To Gay Men

The bill automatically pardons men convicted under Scotland's longtime ban on same-sex relations, which wasn't repealed until 1980. Lawmakers vowed to send a "message that these laws were unjust."

For centuries in Scotland, it was illegal for gay or bisexual men to act on same-sex attractions. Sexual relations, kissing, even flirting — if a Scottish man did it even with a consenting partner, he risked arrest and public shame. By , thousands were prosecuted and convicted before the law was .

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