[zbuc]

Yes.

Isn't it even more disheartening to know that such a thing could happen in an "enlightened" society to someone who had such great accomplishments? It was a complete lack of respect of basic human dignity, and people shouldn't forget that, especially presently when the issue(of gay rights) is finally entering the mass public eye. People should be aware of the results of oppression, it makes them more compassionate.

[fusiongyro]

The problem is that the assertion that Turing killed himself because of oppression is not founded on facts. We'll never know why he killed himself--we may not even be sure he did kill himself. I believe gay rights are an important issue, and certainly evil things were done to Turing. No truths need to be bent to support this cause--and no cause benefits from illusory bolstering by half-truths and semi-lies.

People should be aware of oppression, it does make them more compassionate, but usually when people find out they've been lied to, manipulated to support a cause, they react by rejecting the cause, sometimes violently. That's a lot worse for your cause than whatever benefit you might wring out of having Turing for a spokesman.

[zbuc]

> The problem is that the assertion that Turing killed himself because of oppression is not founded on facts. We'll never know why he killed himself--we may not even be sure he did kill himself. I believe gay rights are an important issue, and certainly evil things were done to Turing. No truths need to be bent to support this cause--and no cause benefits from illusory bolstering by half-truths and semi-lies.

You admitted that terrible things were done to him -- which is enough. It doesn't really matter whether he killed himself over the oppression or not, the argument isn't predicated on that, but whether or not awful things were done to him, which they were, and which are undeniably documented.

But, yeah, I agree that if it's not known whether or not he killed himself specifically over that it shouldn't be brought up -- but there is plenty of substance in what we do know happened to bring up.