This sex poem sparked outrage in 1970s Britain – but who triumphed in the courtroom?

In 1976, a poem depicting Jesus as a gay man sparked a storm of controversy. With graphic descriptions of sex acts, it provoked a fiery legal battle and debates about blasphemy. Fifty years on, David Nash asks: what impact did the case of Mary Whitehouse v Gay News have on LGBTQ rights?

A black‑and‑white photograph of early LGBTQ+ activists standing on a city street in front of a large banner reading “GAY PRIDE” with a white triangle symbol beneath it. Several people face the camera, some holding newspapers or pamphlets. One person holds a sign that says “MARY WHITEHOUSE? HANDS OFF GAY NEWS BUY ONE TODAY.” Tall buildings line the street behind them.

Published: June 12, 2026 at 5:30 PM

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Though debates relating to sexuality, gender identity and the limits of tolerance continue to rage, contemporary Britain seems a broadly accepting place. In historical terms, LGBTQ people are legally safer and freer in the UK than ever before. For most of the period from 1533, when the first civil sodomy law was passed, until the second half of the 20th century, same-sex acts between men were illegal in England. The last men executed for sodomy were hanged in 1835. And even in the mid-1950s, more than 1,000 were being imprisoned for homosexual acts each year.

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By the 1970s, homosexuality was gradually becoming accepted within British society. The tide seemed to be turning with the 1957 Wolfenden Report (officially entitled the Report of the Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution), paving the way for the legalisation of homosexuality in 1967.

That landmark moment was far from the end of the fight for equality, however. And this year marks the 50th anniversary of a court case that severely challenged society’s acceptance of homosexuality – as well as testing legal definitions of blasphemy.

On 3 June 1976, Gay News published a poem by James Kirkup entitled The Love That Dares to Speak Its Name (a nod to “the love that dare not speak its name”, a line in the poem Two Loves written in 1892 by Lord Alfred Douglas, a lover of Oscar Wilde). This fortnightly newspaper, edited by Denis Lemon, had been founded four years earlier as a collaboration between former members of the Gay Liberation Front and members of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality to campaign for gay rights. It also explored gay culture of the past as well as more contemporary art, hence the decision to publish Kirkup’s poem.

A painted portrait of a person shown from the shoulders up, rendered in muted browns and beiges with visible brushstrokes. They have light hair, blue eyes, and a serious expression, looking slightly to the right. The background is abstract and textured in warm earthy tones.

James Kirkup was already a well-established writer in 1976, when the poem was published | Credit: Bridgeman Images

Written in the voice of the centurion present at Christ’s crucifixion, the poem portrays a promiscuous Jesus who had sexual relations with John the Baptist, his disciples and other men including Pontius Pilate. It culminates with a quite graphic description of the centurion performing sex acts with Jesus’s broken body after it was taken down from the cross. The verse was illustrated by a picture of the crucified Christ, his genitalia clearly evident. It’s worth noting that Kirkup was by then an established and respected poet, travel writer, novelist and playwright, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature since 1962 – not just a provocateur. Yet even today his verse still has the power to shock.

Cross the line

But what was Kirkup’s intention and that of those who published his poem? Did they aim to create offence or to suggest the possibility of Christ’s offer of salvation to all people? Was the poem a niche item for a niche audience? There is no doubt that it was a serious piece of work. It did not make light of Christianity, nor did it scoff at religious ideas or doctrines, nor undermine the beliefs of others. This issue of intention proved crucial to the progress and outcome of the ensuing court case.

Soon after the poem’s publication, Mary Whitehouse – for more than two decades, Britain’s leading campaigner against what she saw as Britain’s moral decline – became aware of the verse. For many years it was believed that the relevant copy of Gay News had been sent to her by “a concerned probation officer”. Later anecdotal evidence suggests that it may have been posted to her by an atheist seeking to provoke her.

A black‑and‑white photograph of a person speaking into a microphone labelled “2UW.” They wear large glasses, earrings, and a light‑coloured coat with a high collar. Their expression is focused as they address an unseen audience.

Mary Whitehouse, pictured in 1978, was a conservative campaigner determined to tackle perceived immorality in the media | Credit: Getty Images

Whitehouse was a logical choice of recipient. A social conservative and founder of the National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association, she had long led campaigns against what she saw as the creeping tide of permissiveness engulfing the media. Those who had attracted her attention included a Danish filmmaker, Jens Jørgen Thorsen, who tried unsuccessfully to enter Britain at a time when he was trying to get a film entitled The Sex Life of Christ into production. Even Doctor Who, “teatime brutality for tots”, attracted her ire. Whitehouse also spoke out against homosexuality, claiming to dislike it but not to have anything personal against gay people.

Seeing the poem as an affront both to her own Christian faith and that of others, Whitehouse wondered whether legal action could be taken. This sent lawyers scurrying to antique texts on blasphemy law, where they found the relevant 1697/98 statute had been repealed in 1967, but that the common law offence of blasphemous libel remained in place. Lawyers would also have learnt that the last person prosecuted for blasphemy was socialist campaigner John William Gott, who in 1921 had been sentenced to nine months of imprisonment with hard labour for publishing satirical attacks on Christianity.

Mary Whitehouse spoke out against homosexuality, claiming to dislike it but not to have anything personal against gay people

Scrutinising the law also revealed that a key case in 1883, against George William Foote, found that criticising Christianity was not in itself illegal. Instead, the test of blasphemy was the manner in which this was done. If an individual felt threatened or reacted strongly, that would be the essence of a crime, indicating an intention to offend.

Lawyers eventually decided that Gay News had a case to answer, and Whitehouse launched a private prosecution for blasphemous libel. But what did the accusation of blasphemy mean exactly? Was the poem blasphemous because it was unscriptural? The events described were fictitious, invented many centuries after the gospels, and did not satirise the crucifixion nor the salvation that Christ appeared to promise.

Given wider societal mores of the time, it’s likely that the factor found offensive by some was the association of Christ with homosexuality. That conclusion seems supported by the defence’s eventual attempt to show that the poem’s sentiments were in keeping with the contemporary world’s imaginings of religion and sexuality.

Blasphemy through the ages

British blasphemy laws have been updated and contested many times over the past six centuries

1401: De Heretico Comburendo, an act of parliament intended to suppress heresy in England, is passed under Henry IV 1676: As judge in a blasphemy case, Sir Matthew Hale decides that religion is “part and parcel” of the law 1697: Student Thomas Aikenhead, who had called theology “nonsense” and denied the Trinity during debates, is executed in Edinburgh – the last individual hanged for the crime of blasphemy in Britain 1697/98: Modern blasphemy statute is enacted, making it an offence to deny the Holy Trinity, for example 1819: Richard Carlile is convicted of blasphemy and seditious libel after he published Thomas Paine’s (banned) The Age of Reason and eyewitness accounts of the Peterloo Massacre 1857: Thomas Pooley, likely suffering with mental illness, is prosecuted and imprisoned for blasphemy, having daubed profane and libellous words in places around his neighbourhood 1883: George William Foote is convicted of publishing blasphemy – including a comic-strip ‘Life of Christ’ – in his secular humanist journal The Freethinker

1921: Atheist and socialist John William Gott (pictured) becomes the last person imprisoned for blasphemy in Britain, having published satirical attacks on Christianity 1967: The 1697 blasphemy statute is repealed 1976–79: Denis Lemon and Gay News are tried for blasphemous libel 2008: All remaining blasphemy laws in England and Wales are abolished

 

Moral conflict

Whatever the nuances of different arguments, it seemed as if liberal, progressive Britain was facing off against conservative forces that wanted retrenchment and the protection of traditional morality. The case came to court around the same time as the silver jubilee, the summer when punk broke and the Sex Pistols’ ‘God Save the Queen’ was high in the charts.

John Mortimer, probably the leading radical lawyer of the day, led the defence. Mortimer had been defence counsel in the 1971 obscenity trial of the editors of counterculture magazine Oz, following its publication of a composite image of a highly sexualised Rupert Bear. He was also famous for his fictional creation Rumpole of the Bailey, a lugubrious defence barrister later played by Leo McKern in a long-running ITV series. Alongside Mortimer was a younger barrister, Geoffrey Robertson, subsequently a high-profile human rights lawyer, but who was then just making his mark on the legal profession.

A black‑and‑white photograph of a person wearing large, thick‑rimmed glasses and a light‑coloured sweater over a collared shirt. They raise one hand to their hair, looking slightly downward. The softly lit background suggests an indoor setting.

Barrister Sir John Mortimer also enjoyed a successful writing career. His most famous creation, Rumpole of the Bailey, was based on his father, Clifford | Credit: Getty Images

The duo aimed to establish that Gay News was a legitimate and responsible publication whose output was genuinely in the public interest. They planned to bring in a range of expert and heavyweight witness testimony to prove this assertion, and to state that Gay News was a central part of modern culture.

The defence argued that Whitehouse and her team were defending a passing morality, now firmly out of step with the modern world. In essence, they framed the case as a belated rerun of the Lady Chatterley’s Lover obscenity trial of 1960, when the sexual acts described and swear words uttered in the text led the prosecutor to ask – to the amusement of suburban Britain – whether one’s wife or servant should be allowed to read DH Lawrence’s novel.

As in the Chatterley case, the Gay News defence team poured effort into establishing the credentials of both author and publication, hoping that the last vestiges of censorship would collapse. The moralists would, they hoped, appear silly and out of step with the ‘spirit of the age’. All Britons had earned the right to escape a stuffy, repressive past. With hindsight, it could be argued that painting the case as an act of attempted censorship was a mistake, as was liberal overconfidence in the sensible rationality of the contemporary British mind.

A black‑and‑white photograph showing the torso of a person wearing a suit, a patterned tie, and a pin on their lapel. The pin reads “GAY NEWS FIGHTS ON!” and includes a small illustrated portrait. An urban street with a building wall and a parked car appears in the background.

Denis Lemon, editor of Gay News, was prosecuted for his role in publishing The Love that Dares to Speak Its Name | Credit: Peter Arkell-Reporterdigital.co.uk

Evangelical Christian barrister John Smyth led the case for the prosecution and acted as a mouthpiece for the argument that permissive liberalism had gone too far. As a result, society was being damaged by immorality. If texts such as the Kirkup poem were shared with the populace, Britons would be led towards poor choices and moral danger. Ultimately, this would sweep away Christian, moral England and individuals might lose the possibility of salvation. Such ideas echoed previous complaints about the danger of blasphemy stretching back to the 1920s. These Anglocentric views rested on an argument that Christianity had preserved Britain from the turmoil and revolutions that had engulfed swathes of Europe in the preceding century.

The case saw these opposing viewpoints locking horns in what could be characterised as a struggle between the literary and the literal. The defence argued that free expression should be allowed to the artist, whose responsibility was to the imagination. The prosecution suggested the meaning of language and expressions was literal, and texts could thus be an unacceptable challenge to beliefs cherished by individuals and whole societies.

Unfair fight

In the event, the case as it played out in court proved to be far from a fair fight. From the outset, judge Alan King-Hamilton seemed visibly to favour the prosecution. When the trial commenced, he departed from the usual practice of allowing both defence and prosecution to address the jury. This enabled the prosecution case to be heard in one go, without the break or balance of counterargument.

A round pin‑back button with a white background. At the centre is a black‑and‑white portrait of an older person wearing glasses. Around the portrait, bold pink capital letters read “GAY NEWS FIGHTS ON!”

The newspaper’s battle was highlighted by this badge | Credit: Amgurddfa Cymru - Museum Wales

When the defence was eventually allowed to speak, King-Hamilton’s judgment also severely damaged its argument. To prove the seriousness and acceptability of Gay News, the defence produced famous witnesses in the shape of widely respected journalist and broadcaster Bernard Levin and Margaret Drabble, a similarly renowned author. But both were allowed to speak only as character witnesses rather than to testify about the poem’s literary merit. He also refused leave to consider theological arguments that the figure of Christ could now be interpreted in different ways. Instead, he suggested that, because the jury had all sworn on the New Testament, they were unlikely to be sympathetic to such arguments.

In his summing up, King-Hamilton claimed the poem was simply blasphemous “on its face”. Such a judgment ignored all potential arguments about intention and audience, even going against previous precedents back to the 19th century. In essence, he suggested that, because the case had come to court, the jury should treat the matter such that the literal trumped the literary.

Denis Lemon and Gay News were found guilty of blasphemous libel. Gay News Ltd was fined £1,000, while Lemon was fined £500 and sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment (suspended). It had been touch and go, said the judge, whether he would send Lemon to jail. Gay News Ltd and Lemon were ordered to pay Mary Whitehouse’s legal costs of £7,763.

Gay News Ltd and Lemon appealed against this conviction and sentence. On 17 March 1978, the Court of Appeal quashed Lemon’s suspended prison sentence. However, it upheld the conviction on the basis that the law of blasphemy had been developed before mens rea (literally, a guilty mind – the idea that the mental state or intention of a defendant should be considered in assessing their guilt) became an essential element of most crimes. In other words, the fact that printing the poem wasn’t intended as a criminal act of blasphemous libel provided no defence.

A black‑and‑white photograph of people marching in a street protest. Several hold signs and banners; one visible sign reads “POLICE PERSECUTION OF HOMOSEXUALS.” Another sign in the foreground contains offensive language that is not transcribed. The group walks past urban storefronts, appearing to shout or chant as they move.

Demonstrators march along King’s Road in protest against the prosecution of Gay News | Credit: Getty Images

Gay News readers voted by a majority of 20 to one in favour of appealing to the House of Lords. The law lords delivered their judgment on 21 February 1979. At issue was whether or not the offence of blasphemous libel required specific intent of committing such a blasphemy. By a majority of three to two, the lords concluded that intention was not required – proving publication was all the law had to do.

Wider consequences

This confirmation of the conviction struck many among the gay community as a massive setback. Moreover, the case had a passing but nonetheless chilling effect on campaigns to secure gay rights. While Gay News didn’t suffer financially because its legal costs were covered by a fighting fund, its staff seemed to suffer a crisis of confidence. Gay culture suffered, too. A season of Gay Cinema was cancelled by the National Film Theatre whose director, Brian Baxter, considered it prudent “in the present circumstances”.

Nevertheless, there were push-backs against the judgment, too. The Tom Robinson Band’s 1978 song ‘Glad to be Gay’ referenced the hypocrisy of the Gay News prosecution being pursued at a time when The Sun daily published photographs of topless girls on page 3, and Playboy was routinely stocked in newsagents.

The confirmation of the conviction by the law lords in 1979 struck many among the gay community as a massive setback

Though the case was seen as a blow to the quest for recognition and equality for gay people, subsequent human rights legislation has harmonised the age of consent for gay and heterosexual acts. Similarly, despite setbacks along the way such as the controversial Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 – which banned local authorities from “promoting” homosexuality – sexuality itself has become a protected category within the law, providing firm legal protection against discrimination and hate crimes. Many Christians have embraced the broadly defined Gay Christian movement, and worked hard to promote inclusiveness within churches. Meanwhile, those campaigning for trans rights have, despite recent controversies, won notable victories.

The prosecution and its arguments have fared less well in the intervening decades. In his autobiography, Alan King-Hamilton expressed regret about giving Denis Lemon a suspended sentence, leaving the impression that the conservative response to Gay News had been an overreaction.

A much darker shadow hangs over the prosecution case, particularly John Smyth’s insistence that the poem was vile and glorified “repulsive” homosexual sexual acts. Smyth himself was later unmasked as a decades-long serial emotional, physical and sexual abuser of adolescent boys at his evangelical camps to which victims were lured. That scandal, and the cover-up around it, rocked the Church of England, leading to the resignation of the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, in late 2024.

While Mary Whitehouse would have been appalled to discover Smyth’s activities, her own star waned somewhat after the Gay News case, which was arguably her last major triumph. In truth, her style of moralism and crusading was already falling out of fashion. It’s telling that, as early as 1979, while some councils banned screenings, Monty Python’s Biblical satire Life of Brian was the UK’s fourth-highest grossing film. More generally, in the years since the Gay News case, campaigning against media deemed to have ‘gone too far’ has ceased to use the language of morality and corruption. Instead, it has reached for the more rational and accessible language of ‘safety’, aiming to minimise harm for the vulnerable. Despite the failure of Mortimer’s defence, the literary has, by and large, won out against the literal.

David Nash is senior research fellow in history at Jesus College, University of Oxford

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This article was first published in the June 2026 issue of HistoryExtra Magazine

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