John Smyth, Mary Whitehouse and the Gay News blasphemy trial

The blurb on YouTube explains:

In 1977, Gay News, UK, was committed to trial at the Old Bailey for publication of a blasphemous poem, entitled "The Love That Dare Speak its Name" by James Kirkup, which featured a Roman centurion having sexual fantasies about Christ on the cross. Media morals campaigner, Mary Whitehouse, initiated the charge against Gay News for the publication of a blasphemous poem. The programme features re-enactments of the scenes in court as the trial progressed, as well as interviews with Mary Whitehouse and Gay News editor, Denis Lemon.

This dramatisation of the trial was formed an episode of Everyman, the BBC's religious documentary programme, which went out in a late slot on Sunday evenings between 1977 and 2000.

The prosecution counsel was John Smyth QC, who was Mary Whitehouse's favourite barrister but is now best known for posthumously bringing down an Archbishop of Canterbury.

In his piece on Justin Welby and John Smyth, David Aaronovich says of Smyth:

To me, what was clearly being repeatedly beaten and physically punished was his own repressed homosexuality.

It's hard to resist that conclusion, particularly if you add to the evidence this paragraph from p.33 of a Winchester College review of its part in the affair:

The third concern raised in 1978 was described by Euan MacAlpine in an email dated 28 January 2017, as part of the internal investigation conducted by the College. He stated that in 1978 he had confronted Smyth and accused him of inviting "only goodlooking boys" to his house. He stated that Smyth "curled into a ball and admitted he had gone too far". He said he was sitting in an armchair and then "slowly went into the foetal position, knees right up to his chest and arms holding them".

MacAlpine was a housemaster at Winchester, and I have heard him interviewed about this encounter. There he gave the impression that his tone was conversational, not confrontational, and he said he had first observed that it was good of Smyth to give up his time for the boys and that they obviously enjoyed the time they spent with him. Only then did he add the observation about Smyth only inviting good-looking boys, all of which makes Smyth's reaction seem more extreme.

Anyway, the documentary is now of historical interest, and it stands as a warning to those who seek to restore Mary Whitehouse's reputation.