'Gross indecency' becomes stamp of approval for gay mathematician

Guardian

Alan Turing. Photo from bletchleypark.org.uk.

Mathematician and code breaker Alan Turing will be featured as one of Britain's most valuable individuals as recognized by Royal Mail stamps 2012, despite being charged with 'gross indecency' in 1952 for homosexual acts, Guardian reports.

Turing worked to decode the Enigma cipher in World War II, as well as contributing to history’s first computer.

He was sentenced to chemical castration in 1952, following charges of 'gross indecency' as a result of his homosexuality, something considered illegal in Britain at the time. He killed himself two years after the conviction.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown formally apologized to Alan Turing on behalf of the government in 2009.

The mathematician will now be one of Royal Mail's Britons of Distinction stamp collection, with prominent others including war heroes and artists as well as specific historic events.