Criminal Justice And Public Order Act (1994)

The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 was a broad UK law covering policing, public order, rave culture, and criminal procedure. For LGBTQ+ history its key effect was lowering the age of consent for consensual sex between men from 21 to 18. That was a step forward from the 1967 Sexual Offences Act, which had set it at 21, but it still left gay men unequal, since the age of consent for heterosexual sex was 16. Full equality came later with the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000, which set the age of consent at 16 for everyone across most of the UK.