Alan Turing was instrumental in saving the British from the Germans. He was the Father of computer science, a codebreaker, a mathematician, and the victim of religious prejudice for being homosexual. It is bitterly unjust that a man so important to the freedom of his fellow citizens should have had their laws used against him. Laws he so ardently sought to protect.

Such is the power of religious propaganda and dogma. Some religions teach that there is no middle ground: no room for exceptions. This strict regime of right versus wrong is too inflexible, too archaic for a progressive civilization. Stealing is usually wrong (like taking money from your parents without their express permission), but sometimes stealing can be the only action (like lifting documents from a priest’s office that provide evidence of rampant corruption and child abuse).

Turing was given a choice: go to jail or suffer chemical castration. He chose the latter, to his physical detriment. Two years after his sentence, Turing was found dead from cyanide poisoning, most likely having taken his own life by biting into a poisoned apple.

The Prime Minister apologized in 2009. A symbolic gesture not for Alan Turing, but to admit that the religion-influenced society was wrong in persecuting homosexuals.