Mary Whitehouse's private blasphemy prosecution, UK 1976

Cliff Richards lending support to Mary Whitehouse
establishing the National Viewers' Association and the 'Clean-up TV campaign' 1964

National Portrait Gallery.

Penguin Books faced obscenity charges for publishing an un­cen­sored version of D.H Lawrence's novel, Lady Chatterley's Lover in 1960. The original 1928 book featured detailed sex scenes and many four-letter swear-words. After rendering a not guilty verdict in the Old Bailey, Lady Chatt­er­ley's Lover sold 200,000 copies on its first day of publication. Years later in the Guardian newspaper, human-rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson wrote that this case was foll­owed by liberal court dec­is­ions, legalising homo­sexuality and abortion in Britain.

The National Festival of Light was formed by Mary Whitehouse (1910-2001), with Malcolm Muggeridge, Cliff Richards (b1940-) and a large committee. Their role was to defeat the rise of permissive society in the UK and the explicit depiction of sexual themes in mass media. Their huge rallies occurred in London in Sept 1971.

Gay News had been founded in 1972, uniting Britain’s main gay rights organisations. The time was right for a med­ia representation of homosexuality, given the decrim­inalisation of homosexual acts back in 1967.

Now leap forward to Nov 1976  when Mary Whitehouse, relentless champion of con­serv­ative morality, found a large envelope at her front door - inside was the June 1976 copy of Gay News, the country’s only gay periodical. A scrawled note drew her attent­ion to a poem call­ed The Love That Dares To Speak Its Name, written by poet Prof James Kirkup. The poem graphically detailed the crucifixion of Christ, as seen by a gay Rom­an centurion. 

The intention was to provoke Whitehouse, the person who was a tiresome joke in Britain when spouse and I lived there in the 1970s. It worked. Whitehouse had already irritated successive controllers of BBC television and radio over the years, attacking them for their lax broadcasting standards. Whitehouse had also intervened with the Home Secretary to prevent controversial avant-garde Danish film-maker, Jens Jørgen Thorsen, from entering Britain with his films.

Whitehouse thought the poem in Gay News was both obscene and a direct attack upon Christianity. She discovered that the Common Law offence of blasphemous libel from 1697 still existed and soon the British public was awaiting the outdated vision of a blasphemy trial. In 1977 this seemed the last stand of a conservative estab­lishment that had failed to respond to counterculture productions eg music­als Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell.

In Dec 1976, lawyers investigated the law surrounding blasphemous libel. What the 1697 Blasphemy Law actually meant was unclear, given that the law had been declared a Dead Letter (i.e a law which has not been repealed but is ineffectual in practice) by the then Master of the Rolls after WW2. The last time it had been used was against anarchist John William Gott, in 1921. His harsh prison sentence had broken his health, dying just after being released.

In defending the poem in the Old Bailey, the editor of Gay News, Den­is Lemon, strove to employ the lead­ing counter-cultural advocates of the day. On the other side, barrister John Mortimer (Rumpole of the Bail­ey's author) led the def­en­ce, alongside Geoffrey Robertson, a barrister who championed worthy liberal causes. The defence lined up literary critics, writers and theologians to speak on behalf of Gay News and the poem’s virtues. After all, Britain was a free, tolerant society that had long permitted literary exploration of the Divine. 

                                                  Defence barristers Mortimer (L) and Robertson (R)

But when the trial started in July 1977, the defence team found them­selves totally stumped by procedural decisions. Judge King-Hamilton should normally have allowed both prosec­ution and defence to address the jury at the outset of the case. The pros­ecut­ion was heard in detail, but the defence was not allowed. Judge King-Hamilton also ruled out any theological evid­ence about the precise nature of Christ’s humanity or divinity. King-Hamilton’s grounds were that the entire jury had sworn on the New Testament and were therefore familiar with the Christian faith.  Shame, judge, shame!

Mary Whitehouse delivered the script of The Sex Life of Christ

to the Home Secretary, Oct 1976.

History Today

Geoffrey Robertson later pointed out that genuine academic evidence from theologians would make the blasphemy accusation amb­iguous or even ill-founded, since increasingly liberalising views about Christ­ianity had emerged over the centuries. But no expert theological ev­id­ence was allowed. Once the poem’s manner became the focus of the case, the intention of the poet became irrelevant.

Mortimer and Robertson were desperate to combat the venom piled on Gay News, Lemon and Kirkup. The defence team called on author Margaret Drab­ble and journalist-literary critic Bern­ard Levin. Both were capable of countering the harm wreaked by the prosecution.

Despite denials, it appeared as if homosexuality itself was on trial. Summing up, prosecuting counsel John Smythe em­phasised the immorality of the poem in particular, but that the whole of 1970s morality was on trial. The judge stated that blas­phemy might be a Dead Letter, but a law’s antiquity did not stop it from being relev­ant. He directed the jury that the “intent” behind the poem were irrelevant in law.

The jury gave a majority (10-2) verdict of guilty, something applaud­ed by the judge. In pass­ing sentence, King-Hamilton gave Lemon a nine month suspended prison sentence and fined him £500. Gay News was fin­ed £1,000. Gay News had to pay 4/5 of Mary Whitehouse’s trial costs and her appeal costs were later ordered to be paid out of public funds. 

By indicating that the mere fact of publication was enough to con­vict, Whitehouse v Lemon greatly altered the nation’s understanding of the old blasphemy law. Of course the outcome of the trial was a sur­prise to most middle-of-the-road British citizens; the verdict had suggested a backward period in public morality.

Whitehouse’s desire to protect Britain from sophisticated and urban permissiveness continued. She truly feared that high-minded, moral British culture was being ruined by exposure to anti-Christian Eur­o­pean modernists. Whitehouse, the most censorious, evangelical figure amongst 60 million Brits, must have truly had God’s ear - she was honoured with a CBE in 1980! 

Londoners queue outside Old Bailey courtrooms for the Lady Chatterley's Lover trial, 1960.
Photo credit: Sydney Morning Herald

The Whitehouse v Lemon trial had exposed Britain’s archaic and obscure blasphemy laws. After Whitehouse v Lemon, it is not surprising that no further blas­ph­­emy prosecutions were pursued. And blasphemous libel ceased to be a common law offence in England and Wales with the passing of the Crim­inal Justice and Immigration Act 2008. But it had taken a very long time.

You may want to read Media and Entertainment Law, by Ursula Smartt, 2011. And David Nash, "Blasphemy on Trial" in History Today, 1976