I'm finding it a little hard to see how that managed to be an argument for the extension of gay rights (I wonder how far Abse would have gone with the equality movement on that basis: was it just about decriminalisation for him?) but I suppose if it helped achieve the first step, then we should be willing to acknowledge that it was what was needed at the time.

Which was the whole attitude behind the original Wolfenden Report, as I seem to remember reading. 

Even today, there is a common attitude among the so-called 'liberal' middle-classes that homosexuals are to be pitied.  The mainstream media panders to this attitude, hence the 'soft' portrayal of gay life in pre-watershed viewing fare like 'Coronation Street'.  But, as usual, scratch a liberal and you'll find something a lot less pleasant underneath: these people tend to find the idea of straight-acting, non-camp, happy and sexually fulfilled homosexuals very disturbing indeed. 

The 1966 election gave Labour a large majority, bringing in a flood of younger and more liberal MPs, making the passage of a bill in the next Parliament a near certainty. In July 1966 Abse brought in his second bill, drafted by the Home Office under instructions from Roy Jenkins. Abse's crucial contribution was to persuade John Silkin, the government whip, to allow parliamentary time. Abse's bill set an age of consent of 21 and provided severe penalties for sex with persons under that age. This, Abse noted, "aroused anger among supporters of the Homosexualist Reform Society, who considered 21 far too high an age: but I would not accommodate them, both because I was unconvinced they were right and for tactical reasons." . . . The bill became law in July 1967. Abse supported decriminalisation in the hope that this would allow "a diminution in the incidence of homosexualism" through better education and support for fatherless boys, whom he believed were the most likely to fall "victim" to "the curse, for such it must be, of a male body encasing a feminine soul." He believed that homosexualism was one of the evils of old pre-war class obsessed Britain that would soon perish in the new egalitarian Butskellian post-war Britain.

Throughout the debate, men who indulged in homosexualistic sex were depicted as "victims." Much was made of blackmail, and most of the speeches in favour of reform concentrated on this evil, indulged in a ritual condemnation of the iniquities of homosexualism, and placed themselves firmly against any form of "exhibitionism" or "proselytising."

Praise and thanks for what small and grudging improvements there have thus far (we mean until 2008) been in the treatment of the homosexualist in society are due we think not so much to Mr. Abse but to brave men such as Anthony Grey and his fellows at the Albany Trust.

Families in the Far East are in our experience much easier and more accepting of these relationships. Many of the difficulties are specifically British difficulties! ("Hangs-up" the Americans would say.)

We sense the influence of William Blake do not we?

There's an element of that in the Report but Wolfenden as Chairman, very cleverly and astutely IMHO, made the central argument of the final Report one about individual rights and what proscriptive laws should justifiably be about, rather than about the nature of homosexuality.  He made it very difficult for anyone, whatever other views they might have about homosexuality, to disagree with his conclusion that what consenting adults got up to in private was not an appropriate area for the criminal law.

And anyway, Lord Wolfenden also chaired the Selection Board that got me my first job so I won't hear a word against him .

Also FWIW I think it is Roy Jenkins who deserves much of the credit for getting it on the statute book. It was essentially his decision as Home Secretary to back it that allowed it to happen. The key element was that he effectively made it a Government 'hand out' Private Members Bill (not that there are such things of course ).    

Indeed in February 1966 Humphrey Berkeley moved a private member's bill which passed the second reading stage by 164 votes to 107; but it lapsed when the 1966 election - at which Berkeley who knows why lost his seat! - intervened. Thus the above-mentioned entry of Jenkins and re-entry of Abse in July 1966.

During that period we were residing in the Nether-lands and having a marvellous time without any petty British restrictions! The Dutch used to be so open-minded.